Bat
Encyclopedia
Bats are mammal
s of the order Chiroptera ( from the Greek
cheir (χείρ) "hand" and pteron (πτερόν) "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wing
s, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight
. By contrast, other mammals said to fly
, such as flying squirrel
s, gliding possum
s, and colugo
s, glide
rather than fly, and can only glide for a short distance. Bats do not flap their entire forelimbs, as bird
s do, but instead flap their spread-out digits
, which are very long and covered with a thin membrane
or patagium
.
Bats represent about twenty percent of all classified mammal species worldwide, with about 1,240 bat species divided into two suborders: the less specialized and largely fruit-eating megachiroptera, or flying foxes, and the more highly specialized and echolocating microchiroptera. About seventy percent of bats are insectivore
s. Most of the rest are frugivore
s, or fruit eaters. A few species such as the Fish-eating Bat feed from animals other than insects, with the vampire bat
s being the only parasitic mammalian species. Bats are present throughout most of the world, performing vital ecological roles of pollinating
flower
s and dispersing fruit seeds. Many tropical plant species depend entirely on bats for the distribution of their seeds. Bats are important in eating insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides.
The smallest bat is the Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat, measuring 29–34 mm (1.1–1.3 in) in length, 15 cm (5.91 in) across the wings and 2 gram in mass. It is also arguably the smallest extant species of mammal, with the Etruscan shrew being the other contender. The largest species of bat is the Giant Golden-crowned Flying Fox
, which is 336–343 mm (13.2–13.5 in) long, has a wingspan of 1.5 m (5 ft) and weighs approximately 1.1 kilogram.
Bats are mammal
s. They are often mistakenly called "flying rodent
s" or "flying rats". In many languages, the word for "bat" is cognate with the word for "mouse": for example, 'chauve-souris' ("bald-mouse") in French, 'murciélago' ("blind mouse") in Spanish, 'летучая мышь' ("flying mouse") in Russian, 'nahkhiir' ("leather mouse") in Estonian. An older English name for bats is flittermice (singular flittermouse), which matches their name in other Germanic languages
(for example German
Fledermaus and Swedish
fladdermus). They can also be mistaken for birds. However, they are not related to rodents or birds, and do not have any closely related orders (their uniqueness can be demonstrated by the fact their closest living genetic relatives are thought to be carnivora
ns, certain hoofed animals
such as alpaca
s and hippopotamus
es, and sea mammals such as dolphin
s.)
There are two traditionally recognized suborders of bats:
Not all megabats are larger than microbats. The major distinctions between the two suborders are the following:
Megabats eat fruit, nectar or pollen
while most microbats eat insect
s; others may feed on the blood
of animals, small mammals, fish, frogs, fruit, pollen or nectar. Megabats have a well-developed visual cortex
and show good visual acuity
, while microbats rely on echolocation
for navigation and finding prey.
The phylogenetic relationships of the different groups of bats have been the subject of much debate. The traditional subdivision between Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera reflects the view that these groups of bats have evolved independently of each other for a long time, from a common ancestor
that was already capable of flight. This hypothesis recognized differences between microbats and megabats and acknowledged that flight has only evolved once in mammals. Most molecular biological evidence supports the view that bats form a single or monophyletic group.
Researchers have proposed alternate views of chiropteran phylogeny and classification
, but more research is needed.
Genetic
evidence indicates that megabats originated during the early Eocene
and should be placed within the four major lines of microbats.
Consequently, two new suborders based on molecular data have been proposed. The new suborder Yinpterochiroptera
includes the Pteropodidae
or megabat family as well as the Rhinolophidae
, Hipposideridae, Craseonycteridae, Megadermatidae
, and Rhinopomatidae
families. The new suborder Yangochiroptera
includes all the remaining families of bats (all of which use laryngeal echolocation). These two new suborders are strongly supported by statistical tests. Teeling (2005) found 100% bootstrap support in all maximum likelihood analyses for the division of Chiroptera into these two modified suborders. This conclusion is further supported by a fifteen-base pair deletion in BRCA1 and a seven-base pair deletion in PLCB4 present in all Yangochiroptera and absent in all Yinpterochiroptera. The Chiropteran phylogeny based on molecular evidence is controversial because microbat paraphyly implies that one of two seemingly unlikely hypotheses occurred. The first suggests that laryngeal echolocation evolved twice in Chiroptera, once in Yangochiroptera and once in the rhinolophoids. The second proposes that laryngeal echolocation had a single origin in Chiroptera, was subsequently lost in the family Pteropodidae (all megabats), and later evolved as a system of tongue-clicking in the genus Rousettus.
Analyses of the sequence of the "vocalization" gene, FoxP2 was inconclusive of whether laryngeal echolocation was secondarily lost in the pteropodids or independently gained in the echolocating lineages. However, analyses of the "hearing" gene, Prestin seemed to favor the independent gain in echolocating species rather than a secondary loss in the pteropodids.
In addition to Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, the names Pteropodiformes and Vespertilioniformes have also been proposed for these suborders. Under this new proposed nomenclature, the suborder Pteropodiformes includes all extant bat families more closely related to the genus Pteropus than the genus Vespertilio, while the suborder Vespertilioniformes includes all extant bat families more closely related to the genus Vespertilio than to the genus Pteropus.
In the 1980s, a hypothesis based on morphological
evidence was offered that stated that the Megachiroptera evolved flight separately from the Microchiroptera. The so-called flying primates theory
proposed that when adaptations to flight are removed, the Megachiroptera are allied to primate
s by anatomical features that are not shared with Microchiroptera. One example is that the brains of megabats show a number of advanced characteristics that link them to primates. Although recent genetic studies support the monophyly of bats, debate continues as to the meaning of available genetic and morphological evidence.
Little fossil evidence is available to help map the evolution
of bats, since their small, delicate skeleton
s do not fossilize very well. However a Late Cretaceous
tooth from South America resembles that of an early Microchiropteran bat. The oldest known definitely identified bat fossils, such as Icaronycteris
, Archaeonycteris
, Palaeochiropteryx
and Hassianycteris, are from the early Eocene
period, . These fossil bats were already very similar to modern microbats. Archaeopteropus, formerly classified as the earliest known megachiropteran, is now classified as a microchiropteran.
Bats were formerly grouped in the superorder Archonta
along with the treeshrew
s (Scandentia), colugo
s (Dermoptera), and the primate
s, because of the apparent similarities between Megachiroptera and such mammals. Genetic studies have now placed bats in the superorder Laurasiatheria
along with carnivora
ns, pangolin
s, odd-toed ungulate
s, even-toed ungulate
s, and cetacea
ns.
The traditional classification of bats is:
Megabats primarily eat fruit or nectar. In New Guinea, they are likely to have evolved for some time in the absence of microbats. This has resulted in some smaller megabats of the genus Nyctimene
becoming (partly) insectivorous to fill the vacant microbat ecological niche. Furthermore, there is some evidence that the fruit bat genus Pteralopex
from the Solomon Islands
, and its close relative Mirimiri
from Fiji
, have evolved to fill some niches that were open because there are no nonvolant or non-flying mammals in those islands.
bat, Onychonycteris finneyi
, was found in the fifty-two-million-year-old Green River Formation
in Wyoming, United States, in 2003. It had characteristics indicating that it could fly
, yet the well-preserved skeleton showed that the cochlea
of the inner ear lacked development needed to support the greater hearing abilities of modern bats. This provided evidence that flight in bats developed well before echolocation. The team that found the remains of this species, named Onychonycteris finneyi, recognized that it lacked ear and throat features present not only in echolocating bats today, but also in other known prehistoric
species. Fossil remains of another Eocene
bat, Icaronycteris
, were found in 1960.
The appearance and flight movement of bats 52.5 million years ago were different from those of bats today. Onychonycteris had claws on all five of its fingers, whereas modern bats have at most two claws appearing on two digits of each hand. It also had longer hind legs and shorter forearms, similar to climbing mammals that hang under branches such as sloth
s and gibbon
s. This palm-sized bat had broad, short wings suggesting that it could not fly as fast or as far as later bat species. Instead of flapping its wings continuously while flying, Onychonycteris likely alternated between flaps and glides while in the air. Such physical characteristics suggest that this bat did not fly as much as modern bats do, rather flying from tree to tree and spending most of its waking day climbing or hanging on the branches of trees.
Bats are found in almost every habitat available on Earth. Different species select different habitats during different seasons — ranging from seasides to mountains and even deserts — but bat habitats have two basic requirements: roosts, where they spend the day or hibernate, and places for foraging. Bat roosts can be found in hollows, crevices, foliage, and even human-made structures; and include "tents" that bats construct by biting leaves.
It is estimated that the United States is home to 45 to 48 species of bats. The three most common species are Myotis lucifugus (little brown bat), Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bat), and Tadarida brasiliensis (Mexican free-tailed bat). The little and the big brown bat are common throughout the northern two thirds of the country, while the Mexican free-tailed bat is the most common species in the southwest.
To clearly distinguish returning information, bats must be able to separate their calls from the echoes they receive. Microbats use two distinct approaches.
The new Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera classification of bats that is supported by molecular evidence, suggests two possibilities for the evolution of echolocation. It may have been gained once in a common ancestor of all bats and was then subsequently lost in the Old World fruit bats, only to be regained in the Horse-Shoe bats; or echolocation was evolved independent in both the Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochirpotera lineages.
Two groups of moth
s exploit a bat sense to echolocate: tiger moths
produce ultrasonic
signals to warn the bats that they (the moths) are chemically protected or aposematic. This was once thought to be the biological equivalent of "radar jamming", but this theory has yet to be confirmed. The moths Noctuidae
have a hearing organ called a tympanum
, which responds to an incoming bat signal by causing the moth's flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive manoeuvres.
In addition to echolocating prey, bat ears are sensitive to the fluttering of moth wings, the sounds produced by tymbal
ate insects and the movement of ground-dwelling prey such as centipedes, earwigs etc. The complex geometry of ridges on the inner surface of bat ears helps to sharply focus not only echolocation signals, but to passively listen for any other sound produced by the prey. These ridges can be regarded as the acoustic equivalent of a fresnel lens
, and may be seen in a large variety of unrelated animals such as the aye-aye
, lesser galago, bat-eared fox
, mouse lemur
and others.
s of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity
, none of them are blind. Vision is used to navigate microbats especially for long distances when beyond the range of echolocation. It has even been discovered that some species are able to detect ultraviolet
light. They also have a high quality sense of smell and hearing. Bats hunt at night to avoid competition with birds, and travel large distances at most 800 km, in their search for food.
The finger bones of bats are much more flexible than those of other mammals, owing to their flattened cross-section and to low levels of minerals such as calcium near their tips. The skin on their wing membranes has more elasticity and so can stretch much more than other mammals.
The wings of bats are much thinner than those of birds, allowing bats to maneuver more quickly and more accurately than birds. It is also delicate, ripping easily; however, the tissue of the bat's membrane is able to regrow, such that small tears can heal quickly. The surface of their wings is equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cell
s, also found on human fingertips. These sensitive areas are different in bats, as each bump has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive and allowing the bat to detect and collect information about the air flowing over its wings, and to fly more efficiently by changing the shape of its wing in response. An additional kind of receptor cell is found in the wing membrane of species that use their wings to catch prey. This receptor cell is sensitive to the stretching of the membrane. The cells are concentrated in areas of the membrane where insects hit the wings when the bats capture them.
ns. They are very sharp to bite through the hardened armor of insects or the skin of fruit.
Mammals have one-way valves in vein
s to prevent the blood from flowing backwards, but bats also have one-way valves in arteries
.
The Tube-lipped Nectar Bat
(Anoura fistulata), has the longest tongue
of any mammal relative to its body size. This is beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding. Their long narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flower
s. When their tongue retracts, it coils up inside their rib cage.
hundreds of kilometres to winter hibernation dens, some pass into torpor
in cold weather, rousing and feeding when warm weather allows for insects to be active. Others retreat to caves for winter and hibernate
for six months. Bats rarely fly in rain as the rain interferes with their echo location, and they are unable to locate their food.
The social structure of bats varies, with some bats leading a solitary life and others living in caves colonized by more than a million bats. The fission-fusion social structure
is seen among several species of bats. The term "fusion" refers to a large numbers of bats that congregate together in one roosting area and "fission" refers to breaking up and the mixing of subgroups, with individual bats switching roosts with others and often ending up in different trees and with different roostmates.
Studies also show that bats make all kinds of sounds to communicate with others. Scientists in the field have listened to bats and have been able to identify some sounds with some behaviour bats will make after the sounds are made.
Insectivores make up 70% of bat species and locate their prey by means of echolocation. Of the remainder, most feed on fruit
s. Only three species sustain themselves with blood
. Some species even prey on vertebrate
s: these are the leaf-nosed bat
s (Phyllostomidae) of Central America
and South America
, and the two bulldog bat
(Noctilionidae) species, which feed on fish
. At least two species of bat are known to feed on bats: the Spectral Bat
, also known as the American False Vampire bat, and the Ghost Bat
of Australia
. One species, the Greater Noctule bat
, catches and eats small bird
s in the air.
Predators of bats include bat hawk
s and bat falcon
s.
Most bats have a breeding season, which is in the spring for species living in a temperate climate. Bats may have one to three litters in a season, depending on the species and on environmental conditions such as the availability of food and roost sites. Females generally have one offspring at a time, which could be a result of the mother's need to fly to feed while pregnant. Female bats nurse their youngsters until they are nearly adult size; this is because a young bat cannot forage on its own until its wings are fully developed.
Female bats use a variety of strategies to control the timing of pregnancy and the birth of young, to make delivery coincide with maximum food ability and other ecological factors. Females of some species have delayed fertilization, in which sperm are stored in the reproductive tract for several months after mating. In many such cases, mating occurs in the fall, and fertilization does not occur until the following spring. Other species exhibit delayed implantation, in which the egg is fertilized after mating, but remains free in the reproductive tract until external conditions become favorable for giving birth and caring for the offspring. In yet another strategy, fertilization and implantation both occur but development of the fetus is delayed until favorable conditions prevail. All of these adaptations result in the pup being born during a time of high local production of fruit or insects.
At birth the wings are too small to be used for flight. Young microbat
s become independent at the age of 6 to 8 weeks, while megabat
s do not until they are four months old.
A single bat can live over 20 years, but the bat population growth is limited by the slow birth rate
.
conducted a series of experiments on a group of blind bats. These bats were placed in a room submerged in total darkness, with silk threads strung across the room. Even then, the bats were able to navigate their way through the room. Spallanzani concluded that the bats were not using their eyes to fly through complete darkness, but something else.
Spallanzani decided that bats were able to catch and find their prey through the use of their ears. To prove this theory, Spallanzani plugged the ears of the bats in his experiment. To his pleasure, he found that the bats with plugged ears were not able to fly with the same amount of skill and precision that they were able to without their ears plugged.
Bats seem to use their ears to locate and catch their prey, but how they accomplish this was not discovered until the 1930s, by one Donald R. Griffin. Griffin, who was a biology student at Harvard College at the time, discovered that bats use echolocation to locate and catch their prey. When bats fly, they produce a constant stream of high-pitched sounds that only bats are able to hear. When the sound waves produced by these sounds hit an insect or other animal, the echoes bounce back to the bat, and guide them to the source.
In a test of 34 bat species from six major families of bats, including major insect and fruit-eating bat families, it was found that bats in all tested families have lost the ability to make vitamin C, and this loss may derive from a common bat ancestor, as a single mutation.
Watching a bat catch and eat an insect is difficult. The action is so fast that all one sees is a bat rapidly change directions, and continue on its way. Scientist Frederick A. Webster discovered how bats catch their prey. In 1960, Webster developed a high-speed camera that was able to take one thousand pictures per second. These photos revealed the fast and precise way in which bats catch insects. Occasionally, a bat will catch an insect in mid-air with its mouth, and eat it in the air. However, more often than not, a bat will use its tail membrane or wings to scoop up the insect and trap it in a sort of “bug net”. Then, the bat will take the insect back to its roost. There, the bat will proceed to eat said insect, often using its tail membrane as a kind of napkin, to prevent its meal from falling to the ground.
These bats typically fly down and grasp their prey off the ground with their teeth, and take it to a nearby perch to eat it. Generally, these bats don’t use echolocation to locate their prey. Instead, they rely on the sounds produced by the insects. Some make unique sounds, and almost all make some noise while moving through the environment.
Fruit-eating, or frugivory, is a specific habit found in two families of bats. Megachiropterans and microchiropterans both include species of bat that feed on fruits. These bats feed on the juices of sweet fruits, and fulfill the needs of some seeds to be dispersed. The fruits preferred by most fruit-eating bats are fleshy and sweet, but not particularly strong smelling or colorful. To get the juice of these fruits, bats pull the fruit off the trees with their teeth, and fly back to their roost with the fruit in their mouth. There, the bat will consume the fruit in a specific way. To do this, the bats crush open the fruit and eat the parts that satisfy their hunger. The remainder of the fruit; the seeds and pulp, are spat onto the ground. These seeds take root and begin to grow into new fruit trees. “Over one hundred and fifty types of plants depend on bats in order to reproduce”.
Some bats prefer the nectar of flowers to insects or other animals. These bats have evolved specifically for this purpose. For example, these bats possess long muzzles and long extrusible tongues covered in fine bristles that aid them in feeding on particular flowers and plants. When they sip the nectar from these flowers, pollen gets stuck to their fur, and is dusted off when the bat takes flight, thus pollinating the plants below them. The rainforest is said to be the most benefitted out off all the biomes that bats live in, because of the large variety of appealing plants. Because of their specific eating habits, nectar-feeding bats are more prone to extinction than any other type of bat. However, according to a study, bats benefit from eating fruits and nectar just as much from eating insects.
Although most bats are not included in this group, there is a small group of carnivorous bats which feed on other vertebrates and are considered the top carnivores of the bat world. These bats typically eat a variety of animals, but normally consume frogs, lizards, birds, and sometimes other bats. For example, one vertebrate predator, Trachops cirrhosus, is particularly skilled at catching frogs. These bats locate large groups of frogs by distinguishing their mating calls from other sounds around them. They follow the sounds to the source and pluck them from the surface of the water with their sharp canine teeth. Another example is the Greater Noctule bat
which is believed to catch birds on the wing.
There are also several species of bat that feed on fish. These types of bats are found on almost all continents. They use echolocation to detect tiny ripples in the water’s surface to locate fish. From there, the bats swoop down low, inches from the water, and use specially enlarged claws on their hind feet to grab the fish out of the water. The bats then take the fish to a feeding roost and consume the animal.
There are a few species of bat that consume blood exclusively as their diet. This type of diet is referred to as hematophagy, and three species of bat exhibit this behavior. These species include the Common Vampire Bat
, the White-winged Vampire Bat
, and the Hairy-legged Vampire Bat
. The Common Vampire Bat typically consumes the blood of mammals, while the Hairy-legged and White-winged feed on the blood of birds.
, is so rich in nutrients that it is mined from caves, bagged, and used by farmers to fertilize their crops. During the U.S. Civil War, guano was used to make gunpowder
.
There comes a time in the year that some bats will not eat to supply themselves with food for the night, but for the coming months. These bats are beginning to hibernate. To do this, the bat will eat as much food as its body can contain, being as fat as possible. The bat’s body then takes from the supply of fat for energy, but very slowly, because all body activities have slowed down. This supply of fat will last until the spring season arrives.
gently skim the water's surface, then land nearby to lick water from their chest fur.
, bats are becoming better understood and people beginning to understand the crucial role bats play in insect control and pollination.
In the United Kingdom
all bats are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Acts, and even disturbing a bat or its roost can be punished with a heavy fine.
In Sarawak
, Malaysia bats are protected species under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998 (see Malaysian Wildlife Law
). The large Naked bat (see Mammals of Borneo
) and Greater Nectar bat are consumed by the local communities.
Bats can be a tourist attraction. The Congress Avenue Bridge
in Austin
, Texas
is the summer home to North America
's largest urban bat colony, an estimated 1,500,000 Mexican free-tailed bat
s, which eat an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects each night. An estimated 100,000 tourists per year visit the bridge at twilight to watch the bats leave the roost.
Many people put up bat houses to attract bats just like many people put up birdhouses
to attract birds. Reasons for this vary, but mostly center around the fact that bats are the primary nocturnal insectivores in most if not all ecologies. Bat houses can be made from scratch, made from kits, or bought ready made. Plans for bat houses exist on many web sites, as well as guidelines for designing a bat house. Some conservation societies give away free bat houses to enthusiasts worldwide.
A bat house constructed in 1991 at the University of Florida
campus next to Lake Alice in Gainesville, Florida
has a population of over 100,000 free-tailed bats.
In Britain, British hardened field defences of World War II
have been converted to make roosts for bats. Pillboxes that are well dug-in and thick walled are naturally damp and provide a stable thermal environment that is required by bats that would otherwise hibernate in caves. With a few minor modifications, suitable pillboxes can be converted to artificial caves for bats.
Again in the UK, purpose-built bat houses are occasionally built when existing roosts are destroyed by developments such as new roads; one such has been built associated with bat bridge
s on the new (2008) A38 Dobwalls
bypass.
. The disease is named after a white fungus
found growing on the muzzles, ears, and wings of some afflicted bats, but it is not known if the fungus is the primary cause of the disease or is merely an opportunistic infection
. Mortality rates of 90–100% have been observed in some caves. At least six species of hibernating bats are affected, including the endangered Indiana bat
. Because the affected species have a long lifespan and a low birth rate
of only about one offspring per year, it is not expected that populations will recover quickly.
is causing bat fatalities around wind farms. The lungs of bats are typical mammalian lungs, and unlike the lungs of birds it has been hypothesized they are more sensitive to sudden air pressure changes in their immediate vicinity such as wind turbine
s, and are more liable to rupture. Bats suffer a higher death rate than birds in the neighborhood of wind turbine
s. Since there are no signs of external trauma, the cause has been hypothesized to be a greater sensitivity to sudden pressure fluctuations in the mammalian lung than in that of birds. In addition, it has been suggested that bats are attracted to these structures, perhaps seeking roosts, and thereby increasing the death rate.
s, but are one of the few mammalian orders that cannot host lice (most of the others are water animals).
Bats are natural reservoir
for a large number of zoonotic
pathogen
s including rabies, severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS), Henipavirus
(i.e. Nipah virus and Hendra virus) and possibly ebola virus
. Their high mobility, broad distribution, and social behaviour (communal roosting, fission-fusion social structure) make bats favourable hosts and vectors of disease. Many species also appear to have a high tolerance for harbouring pathogens and often do not develop disease while infected. However, contrary to folklore, this is not true of rabies, which is as fatal to bats as it is to all other species. However, a bat may be ill with rabies for a longer time than other mammals.
In regions where rabies is endemic, only 0.5% of bats carry the disease. In the United States
, bats typically constitute around a quarter of reported cases of rabies in wild animals. However,
their bites account for the vast majority of cases of rabies
in humans. Of the 36 cases of domestically-acquired rabies recorded in the country in 1995-2010, two were caused by dog bites and four patients were infected by receiving transplants from an organ donor who had previously died of rabies. All other cases were caused by bat bites. Rabies is considered fully preventable if the patient is administered a vaccine prior to the onset of symptoms. However, unlike raccoon
or skunk
bites, bat bites may go ignored or unnoticed and hence untreated. Rabid bats are broadly distributed throughout the United States: in 2008-2010, cases were reported in every state, except Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
Those bats that are rabid may be clumsy, disoriented, and unable to fly, which makes it more likely that they will come into contact with humans. Although one should not have an unreasonable fear of bats
, one should avoid handling them or having them in one's living space, as with any wild animal. If a bat is found in living quarters near a child, mentally handicapped person, intoxicated person, sleeping person, or pet, the person or pet should receive immediate medical attention for rabies. Bats have very small teeth and can bite a sleeping person without being felt. There is evidence that it is possible for the bat rabies virus to infect victims purely through airborne transmission, without direct physical contact of the victim with the bat itself.
If a bat is found in a house and the possibility of exposure cannot be ruled out, the bat should be sequestered and an animal control officer called immediately, so that the bat can be analysed. This also applies if the bat is found dead. If it is certain that nobody has been exposed to the bat, it should be removed from the house. The best way to do this is to close all the doors and windows to the room except one that opens to the outside. The bat should soon leave.
Due to the risk of rabies and also due to health problems related to their faecal droppings (guano
), bats should be excluded from inhabited parts of houses. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention
provides full detailed information on all aspects of bat management, including how to capture a bat, what to do in case of exposure, and how to bat-proof a house humanely. In certain countries, such as the United Kingdom
, it is illegal to handle bats without a license.
Where rabies is not endemic, as throughout most of Western Europe
, small bats can be considered harmless. Larger bats can give a nasty bite.
s in many cultural traditions.
The bat is sacred in Tonga
and is often considered the physical manifestation of a separable soul. Bats are closely associated with vampire
s, who are said to be able to shapeshift
into bats, fog
, or wolves. Bats are also a symbol of ghost
s, death
, and disease
. Among some Native Americans
, such as the Creek, Cherokee
and Apache, the bat is a trickster
spirit.
Chinese
lore claims the bat is a symbol of longevity and happiness, and is similarly lucky in Poland
and geographical Macedonia
and among the Kwakiutl
and Arab
s.
Pre-Columbian
cultures associated animals with gods and often displayed them in art. The Moche
people depicted bats in their ceramics.
In Western Culture
, the bat is often a symbol of the night and its foreboding nature. The bat is a primary animal associated with fictional characters of the night, both villain
s like Dracula
and hero
es like Batman
. The association of the fear of the night with the animal was treated as a literary challenge by Kenneth Oppel
, who created a best selling series of novels, beginning with Silverwing
, which feature bats as the central heroic figures much as anthropomorphized rabbit
s were the central figures to the classic novel
Watership Down
.
An old wives' tale
has it that bats will entangle themselves in people's hair. One likely source of this belief is that insect-eating bats seeking prey may dive erratically toward people, who attract mosquito
es and gnat
s, leading the squeamish to believe that the bats are trying to get in their hair.
In Mesoamerica
n mythology
during the Classic-Contemporary period, bats symbolized the land of the dead, which was considered to be the underworld. They also symbolized destruction and decay. Bats may have symbolized in this way because they fly only at night and dwell in caves during the daytime and are associated with human skulls and bones by classic Maya
ceramists. Central Mexicans sometimes depicted bats having snouts that looked like sacrificial knives and carrying human head in the Postclassic era. Bat images were engraved onto funerary urns and were emphasized with large claws and round ears by Zapotecs
. They were commonly associated with death. The depiction of bats on funeral urns and goods took on some the characteristics of the jaguar
which was and still is another entity of the night and the underworld. There have also been instances where bats are portrayed next to other animals portrayed negatively in Mesoamerica, including scorpion
s and other nocturnal animals such as owl
s.
A gigantic, life-size ceramic bat-man has been discovered and dug up from the Templo Mayor. The Templo Mayor is located in the center of the Mexica
capital of Tenochtitlan. Known as a god of death, this statue has the clawed feet and hands of a bat, but the body of a man. The statue's human-like eyes bulged out from the bat-like head, making the Zapotec
images very realistic and living. It was said that in the 1930s the Kaqchikel Maya proclaimed that the bat was the Devil’s provider. Kaqchikel would leave the Devil’s underworld home and collect blood from the animals to be used for scrumptious meals to feed the Devil. “In the myths, the beast of prey and the animal that is preyed upon play two significant roles. They represent two aspects of life—the aggressive, killing, conquering, creating aspect of life, and the one that is the matter or, you might say, the subject matter”. In the Devil’s underworld, dead sinners would work off their sins in order to get to heaven, indicating that the bat was too a sinner and worked under the authority of the Devil.
ns believe that the jealousy of the bat in wanting birds' feathers that gently fit their bodies led him to become nocturnal. The bat feeling isolated and undesirable spoke to God after that he complained he was extremely cold. God, fair and just turned to birds in the animal kingdom and asked if they would show compassion and donate a feather to the bat so the feathers would keep him warm. The birds all agreed, and began to pluck one feather from their bodies to give to the bat. With all of the feathers, the bat became much magnificent looking than all birds, even able to spread color to the night sky. During daylight, the bat created rainbows that reflected vibrant colors from the sun. The bat soon became overly arrogant and conceited, due having this new and improved look. The birds grew tired of the bat’s self conceitedness and glorification, and so decided to fly up to heaven and speak to God to do something. The birds informed to God of the bat's behaviour, God was surprised and so decided to take a look himself. When on Earth, God called on the bat to show him what he was doing. The bat began to fly across the light blue sky, where one by one each feather began to fall out, uncovering the bat’s natural ugly looking body. The bat became ashamed and distressed of his appearance after all feathers came off, missing the beautiful, plentiful feathers that he had, that he decided to hide in caves during the day. He would only come out during the night, searching high and low for the feathers to avoid embarrassment that he will not be seen during his search.
. The bat and the bush-rat would share activities such as rummaging through the grass
and tree
s, hunting, talking and bonding during the day. When at night, the bat and the bush-rat would alternate in cooking duties cooking what was caught, and eat together. It appeared to a dedicated partnership, however the bat hated the bush-rat immensely.
The bush rat always found the bat’s soup
more appetising so when eating dinner one night asked the bat why the soup tasted better than his own and also asked how it was made. The bat agreed to show him how to make it the next day but instead was forming a malicious plan.
Next day as bat prepared his soup, the bush-rat came, greeting him and asked if he could be shown what was agreed yesterday. Earlier, the bat has found a pot looking exactly like the one he used usually, but it held warm water and so decided to use this instead. The bat explained to the bush-rat that to make his soup, he had to boil himself prior to serving the soup where sweetness and flavor of the soup came from the flesh
. The bat jumped in the pot seemingly excited, with the bush-rat mesmerised. After a few minutes the bat climbed out and while the bush-rat was distracted, switched pots. The bat then served his soup out of the soup pot, both tasted it. Over anxious and eager, the bush-rat, jumped into the pot of warm water. He stayed much longer in the pot dying in the process.
When the bush-rat’s wife
returned that night to find her husband
dead, she wept and ran to the chief
of the land's house telling him about what happened and what she was sure what the bat had done. In hearing this, the chief became angry, ordering for the immediate arrest of the bat. It just so happened that the bat was flying over the house and overheard what was just said. He quickly went into hiding high up in a tree. When the chief’s men went looking for the bat, he could not be found. The search to arrest the bat carried on over several days, but still could not be found. The bat needed to eat, so flew out of hiding every night to hunt
for food
to escape of being arrested. This, according to Eastern Nigeria mythology, is why bats only fly at night.
The bat is sometimes used as a heraldic symbol
. The coats of arms of certain cities in eastern Spain
, like Valencia, Palma de Mallorca
and Fraga
have the bat over the shield. Formerly the Barcelona
city coat of arms also had a bat crowning it, but the bat has been removed in the present-day versions.
The heraldic use of the bat in Valencia, Catalonia
and the Balearic Islands
has its origins in a winged dragon (vibra or vibria), which featured in King James I of Aragon
's helmet or cimera reial. This is the most widely accepted theory, although there is also a legend that says that due to the intervention of a bat, King James was able to win a crucial battle against the Saracen
s that allowed him to win Valencia for his kingdom.
The use of the bat as a heraldic symbol is prevalent in the territories of the former Crown of Aragon
and it is little used elsewhere. However, it can be found in a few places, as in the coats of arms of the city of Albacete
, in Spain, as well as the town of Montchauvet (Yvelines)
, in France
.
Certain Spanish football clubs including Valencia CF
and Levante UD
use bats in their badges.
The Burgee
of the Royal Valencia Yacht Club (Reial Club Nàutic de València) displays a bat on a golden field in its center.
. Virginia is represented by the Virginia big-eared bat.
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s of the order Chiroptera ( from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
cheir (χείρ) "hand" and pteron (πτερόν) "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wing
Wing
A wing is an appendage with a surface that produces lift for flight or propulsion through the atmosphere, or through another gaseous or liquid fluid...
s, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight
Flight
Flight is the process by which an object moves either through an atmosphere or beyond it by generating lift or propulsive thrust, or aerostatically using buoyancy, or by simple ballistic movement....
. By contrast, other mammals said to fly
Flight
Flight is the process by which an object moves either through an atmosphere or beyond it by generating lift or propulsive thrust, or aerostatically using buoyancy, or by simple ballistic movement....
, such as flying squirrel
Flying squirrel
Flying squirrels, scientifically known as Pteromyini or Petauristini, are a tribe of 44 species of squirrels .- Description :...
s, gliding possum
Greater Glider
The Greater Glider is a small gliding marsupial found in Australia. It is not closely related to the Petaurus group of gliding marsupials but instead to the Lemur-like Ringtail Possum , with which it shares the subfamily Hemibelideinae.The Greater Glider is nocturnal and is a solitary herbivore...
s, and colugo
Colugo
Colugos are arboreal gliding mammals found in South-east Asia. There are just two extant species, which make up the entire family Cynocephalidae and order Dermoptera. They are the most capable of all gliding mammals, using flaps of extra skin between their legs to glide from higher to lower...
s, glide
Gliding (flight)
Gliding flight is heavier-than-air flight without the use of thrust. It is employed by gliding animals and by aircraft such as gliders. The most common human application of gliding flight is in sport and recreation using aircraft designed for this purpose...
rather than fly, and can only glide for a short distance. Bats do not flap their entire forelimbs, as bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s do, but instead flap their spread-out digits
Digit (anatomy)
A digit is one of several most distal parts of a limb, such as fingers or toes, present in many vertebrates.- Names:Some languages have different names for hand and foot digits ....
, which are very long and covered with a thin membrane
Skin
-Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...
or patagium
Patagium
*In bats, the skin forming the surface of the wing. It is an extension of the skin of the abdomen that runs to the tip of each digit, uniting the forelimb with the body.*The patagium of a bat has four distinct parts:...
.
Bats represent about twenty percent of all classified mammal species worldwide, with about 1,240 bat species divided into two suborders: the less specialized and largely fruit-eating megachiroptera, or flying foxes, and the more highly specialized and echolocating microchiroptera. About seventy percent of bats are insectivore
Insectivore
An insectivore is a type of carnivore with a diet that consists chiefly of insects and similar small creatures. An alternate term is entomophage, which also refers to the human practice of eating insects....
s. Most of the rest are frugivore
Frugivore
A frugivore is a fruit eater. It can be any type of herbivore or omnivore where fruit is a preferred food type. Because approximately 20% of all mammalian herbivores also eat fruit, frugivory is considered to be common among mammals. Since frugivores eat a lot of fruit they are highly dependent...
s, or fruit eaters. A few species such as the Fish-eating Bat feed from animals other than insects, with the vampire bat
Vampire bat
Vampire bats are bats whose food source is blood, a dietary trait called hematophagy. There are three bat species that feed solely on blood: the Common Vampire Bat , the Hairy-legged Vampire Bat , and the White-winged Vampire Bat .All three species are native to the Americas, ranging from Mexico to...
s being the only parasitic mammalian species. Bats are present throughout most of the world, performing vital ecological roles of pollinating
Pollinator
A pollinator is the biotic agent that moves pollen from the male anthers of a flower to the female stigma of a flower to accomplish fertilization or syngamy of the female gamete in the ovule of the flower by the male gamete from the pollen grain...
flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s and dispersing fruit seeds. Many tropical plant species depend entirely on bats for the distribution of their seeds. Bats are important in eating insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides.
The smallest bat is the Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat, measuring 29–34 mm (1.1–1.3 in) in length, 15 cm (5.91 in) across the wings and 2 gram in mass. It is also arguably the smallest extant species of mammal, with the Etruscan shrew being the other contender. The largest species of bat is the Giant Golden-crowned Flying Fox
Giant golden-crowned flying fox
The Giant golden-crowned flying fox , also known as the Golden-capped fruit bat, is a rare megabat and considered the largest known bat in the world. The species is endangered and is currently facing the possibility of extinction because of poaching and forest destruction...
, which is 336–343 mm (13.2–13.5 in) long, has a wingspan of 1.5 m (5 ft) and weighs approximately 1.1 kilogram.
Classification and evolution
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s. They are often mistakenly called "flying rodent
Rodent
Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....
s" or "flying rats". In many languages, the word for "bat" is cognate with the word for "mouse": for example, 'chauve-souris' ("bald-mouse") in French, 'murciélago' ("blind mouse") in Spanish, 'летучая мышь' ("flying mouse") in Russian, 'nahkhiir' ("leather mouse") in Estonian. An older English name for bats is flittermice (singular flittermouse), which matches their name in other Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
(for example German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
Fledermaus and Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
fladdermus). They can also be mistaken for birds. However, they are not related to rodents or birds, and do not have any closely related orders (their uniqueness can be demonstrated by the fact their closest living genetic relatives are thought to be carnivora
Carnivora
The diverse order Carnivora |Latin]] carō "flesh", + vorāre "to devour") includes over 260 species of placental mammals. Its members are formally referred to as carnivorans, while the word "carnivore" can refer to any meat-eating animal...
ns, certain hoofed animals
Ungulate
Ungulates are several groups of mammals, most of which use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving. They make up several orders of mammals, of which six to eight survive...
such as alpaca
Alpaca
An alpaca is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in appearance.Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru, northern Bolivia, Ecuador, and northern Chile at an altitude of to above sea level, throughout the year...
s and hippopotamus
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...
es, and sea mammals such as dolphin
Dolphin
Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
s.)
There are two traditionally recognized suborders of bats:
- MegachiropteraMegabatMegabats constitute the suborder Megachiroptera, family Pteropodidae of the order Chiroptera . They are also called fruit bats, old world fruit bats, or flying foxes.-Description:...
(megabats) - MicrochiropteraMicrobatThe microbats constitute the suborder Microchiroptera within the order Chiroptera . They are most often referred to by their scientific name...
(microbats/echolocating bats)
Not all megabats are larger than microbats. The major distinctions between the two suborders are the following:
- Microbats use echolocationAnimal echolocationEcholocation, also called biosonar, is the biological sonar used by several kinds of animals.Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these echoes to locate and identify the objects...
: megabats do not with the exception of RousettusRousettusRousettus is a genus of Old World fruit bats or megabats. They are sometimes referred to as dog-faced fruit bats, or flying foxes. The genus is a member of the suborder Megachiroptera...
and relatives. - Microbats lack the clawClawA claw is a curved, pointed appendage, found at the end of a toe or finger in most mammals, birds, and some reptiles. However, the word "claw" is also often used in reference to an invertebrate. Somewhat similar fine hooked structures are found in arthropods such as beetles and spiders, at the end...
at the second toeToeToes are the digits of the foot of a tetrapod. Animal species such as cats that walk on their toes are described as being digitigrade. Humans, and other animals that walk on the soles of their feet, are described as being plantigrade; unguligrade animals are those that walk on hooves at the tips of...
of the forelimbForelimbA forelimb is an anterior limb on an animal's body. When referring to quadrupeds , the term foreleg is often instead used....
. - The earEarThe ear is the organ that detects sound. It not only receives sound, but also aids in balance and body position. The ear is part of the auditory system....
s of microbats do not close to form a ring: the edges are separated from each other at the base of the ear. - Microbats lack underfur: they are either naked or have guard hairGuard hairGuard hairs are the longest, coarsest hairs in a mammal's coat, forming the topcoat . They taper to a point and protect the undercoat from the elements. They are often water repellent and stick out above the rest of the coat...
s.
Megabats eat fruit, nectar or pollen
Pollen
Pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes . Pollen grains have a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants or from the male cone to the...
while most microbats eat insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s; others may feed on the blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
of animals, small mammals, fish, frogs, fruit, pollen or nectar. Megabats have a well-developed visual cortex
Visual cortex
The visual cortex of the brain is the part of the cerebral cortex responsible for processing visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe, in the back of the brain....
and show good visual acuity
Visual acuity
Visual acuity is acuteness or clearness of vision, which is dependent on the sharpness of the retinal focus within the eye and the sensitivity of the interpretative faculty of the brain....
, while microbats rely on echolocation
Animal echolocation
Echolocation, also called biosonar, is the biological sonar used by several kinds of animals.Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these echoes to locate and identify the objects...
for navigation and finding prey.
The phylogenetic relationships of the different groups of bats have been the subject of much debate. The traditional subdivision between Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera reflects the view that these groups of bats have evolved independently of each other for a long time, from a common ancestor
Common descent
In evolutionary biology, a group of organisms share common descent if they have a common ancestor. There is strong quantitative support for the theory that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor....
that was already capable of flight. This hypothesis recognized differences between microbats and megabats and acknowledged that flight has only evolved once in mammals. Most molecular biological evidence supports the view that bats form a single or monophyletic group.
Researchers have proposed alternate views of chiropteran phylogeny and classification
Biological classification
Biological classification, or scientific classification in biology, is a method to group and categorize organisms by biological type, such as genus or species. Biological classification is part of scientific taxonomy....
, but more research is needed.
Genetic
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
evidence indicates that megabats originated during the early Eocene
Eocene
The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...
and should be placed within the four major lines of microbats.
Consequently, two new suborders based on molecular data have been proposed. The new suborder Yinpterochiroptera
Yinpterochiroptera
The Yinpterochiroptera is a proposed suborder of the Chiroptera, which includes the megabats and three of the microbat families: Rhinopomatidae, Rhinolophidae and Megadermatidae. This taxon is primarily based on molecular genetics data. This is a relatively recent proposal, which challenges the...
includes the Pteropodidae
Megabat
Megabats constitute the suborder Megachiroptera, family Pteropodidae of the order Chiroptera . They are also called fruit bats, old world fruit bats, or flying foxes.-Description:...
or megabat family as well as the Rhinolophidae
Horseshoe bat
Horseshoe bats are a family of bats. In addition to the single living genus, Rhinolophus, there is one extinct genus, Palaeonycteris. The closely related Hipposideridae are sometimes included within the horseshoe bats as a subfamily, Hipposiderinae...
, Hipposideridae, Craseonycteridae, Megadermatidae
Megadermatidae
Megadermatidae, or False Vampire Bats, are a family of bats found from central Africa, eastwards through southern Asia, and into Australia. They are relatively large bats, ranging from 6.5 cm to 14 cm in head-body length. They have large eyes, very large ears and a prominent nose-leaf. They have a...
, and Rhinopomatidae
Rhinopomatidae
Mouse-tailed bats are a group of insectivorous bats of the family Rhinopomatidae with only three to five species, all contained in the single genus Rhinopoma. They are found in the Old World, from North Africa to Thailand and Sumatra, in arid and semi-arid regions, roosting in caves, houses and...
families. The new suborder Yangochiroptera
Yangochiroptera
The Yangochiroptera is a proposed suborder of Chiroptera that includes most of the microbat families, except the Rhinopomatidae, Rhinolophidae and the Megadermatidae. These other families, plus the megabats, are seen as part of another suborder, Yinpterochiroptera.The rationale for the...
includes all the remaining families of bats (all of which use laryngeal echolocation). These two new suborders are strongly supported by statistical tests. Teeling (2005) found 100% bootstrap support in all maximum likelihood analyses for the division of Chiroptera into these two modified suborders. This conclusion is further supported by a fifteen-base pair deletion in BRCA1 and a seven-base pair deletion in PLCB4 present in all Yangochiroptera and absent in all Yinpterochiroptera. The Chiropteran phylogeny based on molecular evidence is controversial because microbat paraphyly implies that one of two seemingly unlikely hypotheses occurred. The first suggests that laryngeal echolocation evolved twice in Chiroptera, once in Yangochiroptera and once in the rhinolophoids. The second proposes that laryngeal echolocation had a single origin in Chiroptera, was subsequently lost in the family Pteropodidae (all megabats), and later evolved as a system of tongue-clicking in the genus Rousettus.
In addition to Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, the names Pteropodiformes and Vespertilioniformes have also been proposed for these suborders. Under this new proposed nomenclature, the suborder Pteropodiformes includes all extant bat families more closely related to the genus Pteropus than the genus Vespertilio, while the suborder Vespertilioniformes includes all extant bat families more closely related to the genus Vespertilio than to the genus Pteropus.
In the 1980s, a hypothesis based on morphological
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
evidence was offered that stated that the Megachiroptera evolved flight separately from the Microchiroptera. The so-called flying primates theory
Flying primates theory
The flying primates theory conjectures that megabats, a sub-group of Chiroptera , form an evolutionary sister group of Primates. This theory started with Carl Linnaeus, and was again advanced by J.D Smith in 1980...
proposed that when adaptations to flight are removed, the Megachiroptera are allied to primate
Primate
A primate is a mammal of the order Primates , which contains prosimians and simians. Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests; many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment...
s by anatomical features that are not shared with Microchiroptera. One example is that the brains of megabats show a number of advanced characteristics that link them to primates. Although recent genetic studies support the monophyly of bats, debate continues as to the meaning of available genetic and morphological evidence.
Little fossil evidence is available to help map the evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of bats, since their small, delicate skeleton
Skeleton
The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...
s do not fossilize very well. However a Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous period is divided in the geologic timescale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous series...
tooth from South America resembles that of an early Microchiropteran bat. The oldest known definitely identified bat fossils, such as Icaronycteris
Icaronycteris
Icaronycteris is an extinct genus of microchiropteran bat that lived in the early Eocene, approximately 52.2 million years ago. Four exceptionally preserved specimens are known from the Green River Formation of North America. There is only one thoroughly described species of bat in the genus, I...
, Archaeonycteris
Archaeonycteris
Archaeonycteris was a primitive bat genus whose remains were found in Germany, France, England and India.-Species:*Archaeonycteris trigonodon Revilliod, 1917 - Messel Pit , Germany...
, Palaeochiropteryx
Palaeochiropteryx
Palaeochiropteryx is an extinct genus of bat from the Middle Eocene of Europe. It contains two very similar species – Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon and Palaeochiropteryx spiegeli, both from the famous Messel Pit of Germany...
and Hassianycteris, are from the early Eocene
Eocene
The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...
period, . These fossil bats were already very similar to modern microbats. Archaeopteropus, formerly classified as the earliest known megachiropteran, is now classified as a microchiropteran.
Bats were formerly grouped in the superorder Archonta
Archonta
The Archonta are a group of mammals considered a superorder in some classifications.The Archonta consist of the following orders:*Primates*Plesiadapiformes *Scandentia *Dermoptera *Chiroptera...
along with the treeshrew
Treeshrew
The treeshrews are small mammals native to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. They make up the families Tupaiidae, the treeshrews, and Ptilocercidae, the pen-tailed treeshrews, and the entire order Scandentia. There are 20 species in 5 genera...
s (Scandentia), colugo
Colugo
Colugos are arboreal gliding mammals found in South-east Asia. There are just two extant species, which make up the entire family Cynocephalidae and order Dermoptera. They are the most capable of all gliding mammals, using flaps of extra skin between their legs to glide from higher to lower...
s (Dermoptera), and the primate
Primate
A primate is a mammal of the order Primates , which contains prosimians and simians. Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests; many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment...
s, because of the apparent similarities between Megachiroptera and such mammals. Genetic studies have now placed bats in the superorder Laurasiatheria
Laurasiatheria
Laurasiatheria is a large group of placental mammals believed to have originated on the northern supercontinent of Laurasia. It includes shrews, hedgehogs, pangolins, bats, whales, most hoofed mammals, and carnivorans, among others....
along with carnivora
Carnivora
The diverse order Carnivora |Latin]] carō "flesh", + vorāre "to devour") includes over 260 species of placental mammals. Its members are formally referred to as carnivorans, while the word "carnivore" can refer to any meat-eating animal...
ns, pangolin
Pangolin
A pangolin , also scaly anteater or Trenggiling, is a mammal of the order Pholidota. There is only one extant family and one genus of pangolins, comprising eight species. There are also a number of extinct taxa. Pangolins have large keratin scales covering their skin and are the only mammals with...
s, odd-toed ungulate
Odd-toed ungulate
An odd-toed ungulate is a mammal with hooves that feature an odd number of toes. Odd-toed ungulates comprise the order Perissodactyla . The middle toe on each hoof is usually larger than its neighbours...
s, even-toed ungulate
Even-toed ungulate
The even-toed ungulates are ungulates whose weight is borne about equally by the third and fourth toes, rather than mostly or entirely by the third as in odd-toed ungulates such as horses....
s, and cetacea
Cetacea
The order Cetacea includes the marine mammals commonly known as whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Cetus is Latin and is used in biological names to mean "whale"; its original meaning, "large sea animal", was more general. It comes from Ancient Greek , meaning "whale" or "any huge fish or sea...
ns.
- Order Chiroptera
- Suborder Megachiroptera (megabatMegabatMegabats constitute the suborder Megachiroptera, family Pteropodidae of the order Chiroptera . They are also called fruit bats, old world fruit bats, or flying foxes.-Description:...
s)- Pteropodidae
- Suborder Microchiroptera (microbatMicrobatThe microbats constitute the suborder Microchiroptera within the order Chiroptera . They are most often referred to by their scientific name...
s)- Superfamily Emballonuroidea
- Emballonuridae (Sac-wingedSac-winged batThe 51 species of sac-winged or sheath-tailed bats constitute the family Emballonuridae, and can be found in tropical and subtropical regions all over the world. Emballonurids include some of the smallest of all bats, and range from 3.5 to 10 cm in body length...
or Sheath-tailed bats)
- Emballonuridae (Sac-winged
- Superfamily Molossoidea
- Molossidae (Free-tailed batFree-tailed batMolossidae, or free-tailed bats, are a family of bats within the order Chiroptera. They are generally quite robust, and consist of many strong flying forms with relatively long and narrow wings. Another common name for some members of this group, and indeed a few species from other families, is...
s)
- Molossidae (Free-tailed bat
- Superfamily Nataloidea
- FuripteridaeFuripteridaeFuripteridae is one of the families of bats. This family contains only two species, the Smokey Bat and the Thumbless Bat. Both are from Central and South America, and are closely related to the bats in the Natalidae and Thyropteridae families. They can be recognized by their reduced and...
(Smoky bats) - MyzopodidaeMyzopodaMyzopoda is the only genus in family Myzopodidae, a family of bats, endemic to Madagascar.Two species:FAMILY MYZOPODIDAE*Genus Myzopoda**Madagascar Sucker-footed Bat, Myzopoda aurita Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1878...
(Sucker-footed bats) - NatalidaeNatalidaeThe family Natalidae, or funnel-eared bats are found from Mexico to Brazil and the Caribbean islands. The family has three genera, Chilonatalus, Natalus and Nyctiellus. They are slender bats with unusually long tails and, as their name suggests, funnel-shaped ears. They are small, at only 3.5 to...
(Funnel-eared bats) - ThyropteridaeThyropteridaeDisc-winged bats are a small group of bats of the family Thyropteridae. They are found in Central and South America, usually in moist tropical rain forests. It is a very small family, consisting of a single genus with four species....
(Disk-winged bats)
- Furipteridae
- Superfamily Noctilionoidea
- MormoopidaeMormoopidaeThe family Mormoopidae contains bats known generally as mustached bats, ghost-faced bats, and naked-backed bats. They are found in the Americas from the Southwestern United States to Southeastern Brazil....
(Ghost-facedGhost-faced BatThe Ghost-faced Bat is a bat in the genus Mormoops. It occurs in Belize, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico. Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela and in Texas in the United States. Mormoops megalophylla is one of only two extant species within it genus, the other being...
or Moustached bats) - MystacinidaeMystacinidaeMystacinidae is a family of unusual bats, the New Zealand short-tailed bats. There is one living genus, Mystacina, with two extant species, one of which is believed to have become extinct in the 1960s. They are medium-sized bats, about in length, with grey, velvety fur.Mystacinids are the most...
(New Zealand short-tailed bats) - Noctilionidae (Bulldog batBulldog batThe Noctilionidae family of bats, commonly known as bulldog bats orfisherman bats, are represented by two species, the Greater Bulldog Bat and the Lesser Bulldog Bat. They are found near water, from Mexico to Argentina...
s or Fisherman bats) - Phyllostomidae (Leaf-nosed batLeaf-nosed batThe New World leaf-nosed bats are found throughout Central and South America, from Mexico to northern Argentina. They are ecologically the most varied and diverse family within the order Chiroptera...
s)
- Mormoopidae
- Superfamily Rhinolophoidea
- MegadermatidaeMegadermatidaeMegadermatidae, or False Vampire Bats, are a family of bats found from central Africa, eastwards through southern Asia, and into Australia. They are relatively large bats, ranging from 6.5 cm to 14 cm in head-body length. They have large eyes, very large ears and a prominent nose-leaf. They have a...
(False vampiresMegadermatidaeMegadermatidae, or False Vampire Bats, are a family of bats found from central Africa, eastwards through southern Asia, and into Australia. They are relatively large bats, ranging from 6.5 cm to 14 cm in head-body length. They have large eyes, very large ears and a prominent nose-leaf. They have a...
) - NycteridaeNycteridaeNycteridae is the family of slit-faced or hollow-faced bats. They are grouped in a single genus, Nycteris. The bats are found in East Malaysia, Indonesia and many parts of Africa....
(Hollow-faced or Slit-faced bats) - Rhinolophidae (Horseshoe batHorseshoe batHorseshoe bats are a family of bats. In addition to the single living genus, Rhinolophus, there is one extinct genus, Palaeonycteris. The closely related Hipposideridae are sometimes included within the horseshoe bats as a subfamily, Hipposiderinae...
s) - Hipposideridae (Old World Leaf-nosed Bats)
- Megadermatidae
- Superfamily Rhinopomatoidea
- Craseonycteridae (Bumblebee Bat or Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat)
- RhinopomatidaeRhinopomatidaeMouse-tailed bats are a group of insectivorous bats of the family Rhinopomatidae with only three to five species, all contained in the single genus Rhinopoma. They are found in the Old World, from North Africa to Thailand and Sumatra, in arid and semi-arid regions, roosting in caves, houses and...
(Mouse-tailed bats)
- Superfamily Vespertilionoidea
- Vespertilionidae (Vesper batVesper batVesper bats , also known as Evening bats or Common bats, are the largest and best-known family of bats. They belong to the suborder Microchiroptera . There are over three hundred species distributed all over the world, on every continent except Antarctica...
s or Evening bats) - Antrozoidae (Pallid BatPallid batThe Pallid Bat is a species of bat that ranges from western Canada to central Mexico. It is the sole species of its genus and is closely related to Van Gelder's Bat , which is sometimes included in Antrozous...
and Van Gelder's BatVan Gelder's BatVan Gelder's Bat is a species of vesper bat in the Vespertilionidae family.It is found in Belize, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Mexico. It is monotypic within its genus...
)
- Vespertilionidae (Vesper bat
- Superfamily Emballonuroidea
- Suborder Megachiroptera (megabat
Megabats primarily eat fruit or nectar. In New Guinea, they are likely to have evolved for some time in the absence of microbats. This has resulted in some smaller megabats of the genus Nyctimene
Nyctimene (genus)
Nyctimene is a genus of megabats in the Pteropodidae family. They are distributed in the central Philippines, eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the north eastern tip of Queensland, Australia.It contains these species:Genus Nyctimene...
becoming (partly) insectivorous to fill the vacant microbat ecological niche. Furthermore, there is some evidence that the fruit bat genus Pteralopex
Pteralopex
Pteralopex is a genus of large megabats in the Pteropodidae family. They are restricted to Solomon Islands rain forests in Melanesia, and all species are seriously threatened, being rated as either endangered or critically endangered by IUCN. Two species, P. taki and P...
from the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
, and its close relative Mirimiri
Fijian Monkey-faced Bat
The Fijian monkey-faced bat , also called the Fiji Flying Fox, is an megabat endemic to Fiji. It was discovered the hills of Taveuni by Bill Beckon in 1977 and is Fiji's only endemic mammal. It is listed as a critically endangered species due to habitat loss. It has recently been transferred from...
from Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
, have evolved to fill some niches that were open because there are no nonvolant or non-flying mammals in those islands.
Fossil bats
There are few fossilized remains of bats, as they are terrestrial and light-boned. It has been estimated that only 12% of the bat fossil record is complete at the genus level. An EoceneEocene
The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...
bat, Onychonycteris finneyi
Onychonycteris
Onychonycteris is the most primitive of the two oldest known monospecific genera of bat, having lived in the area that is current day Wyoming during the Eocene period, 52.5 million years ago.-History and description:...
, was found in the fifty-two-million-year-old Green River Formation
Green River Formation
The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a group of intermountain lakes. The sediments are deposited in very fine layers, a dark layer during the growing season and a light-hue inorganic layer in winter. Each pair of layers is called a varve and...
in Wyoming, United States, in 2003. It had characteristics indicating that it could fly
Flying and gliding animals
A number of animals have evolved aerial locomotion, either by powered flight or by gliding. Flying and gliding animals have evolved separately many times, without any single ancestor. Flight has evolved at least four times, in the insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. Gliding has evolved on many...
, yet the well-preserved skeleton showed that the cochlea
Cochlea
The cochlea is the auditory portion of the inner ear. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, making 2.5 turns around its axis, the modiolus....
of the inner ear lacked development needed to support the greater hearing abilities of modern bats. This provided evidence that flight in bats developed well before echolocation. The team that found the remains of this species, named Onychonycteris finneyi, recognized that it lacked ear and throat features present not only in echolocating bats today, but also in other known prehistoric
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
species. Fossil remains of another Eocene
Eocene
The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...
bat, Icaronycteris
Icaronycteris
Icaronycteris is an extinct genus of microchiropteran bat that lived in the early Eocene, approximately 52.2 million years ago. Four exceptionally preserved specimens are known from the Green River Formation of North America. There is only one thoroughly described species of bat in the genus, I...
, were found in 1960.
The appearance and flight movement of bats 52.5 million years ago were different from those of bats today. Onychonycteris had claws on all five of its fingers, whereas modern bats have at most two claws appearing on two digits of each hand. It also had longer hind legs and shorter forearms, similar to climbing mammals that hang under branches such as sloth
Sloth
Sloths are the six species of medium-sized mammals belonging to the families Megalonychidae and Bradypodidae , part of the order Pilosa and therefore related to armadillos and anteaters, which sport a similar set of specialized claws.They are arboreal residents of the jungles of Central and South...
s and gibbon
Gibbon
Gibbons are apes in the family Hylobatidae . The family is divided into four genera based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus . The extinct Bunopithecus sericus is a gibbon or gibbon-like ape which, until recently, was thought to be closely related...
s. This palm-sized bat had broad, short wings suggesting that it could not fly as fast or as far as later bat species. Instead of flapping its wings continuously while flying, Onychonycteris likely alternated between flaps and glides while in the air. Such physical characteristics suggest that this bat did not fly as much as modern bats do, rather flying from tree to tree and spending most of its waking day climbing or hanging on the branches of trees.
Habitats
Flight has enabled bats to become one of the most widely distributed groups of mammals. Apart from the Arctic, the Antarctic and a few isolated oceanic islands, bats exist all over the world.Bats are found in almost every habitat available on Earth. Different species select different habitats during different seasons — ranging from seasides to mountains and even deserts — but bat habitats have two basic requirements: roosts, where they spend the day or hibernate, and places for foraging. Bat roosts can be found in hollows, crevices, foliage, and even human-made structures; and include "tents" that bats construct by biting leaves.
It is estimated that the United States is home to 45 to 48 species of bats. The three most common species are Myotis lucifugus (little brown bat), Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bat), and Tadarida brasiliensis (Mexican free-tailed bat). The little and the big brown bat are common throughout the northern two thirds of the country, while the Mexican free-tailed bat is the most common species in the southwest.
Anatomy
Echolocation
Bat echolocation is a perceptual system where ultrasonic sounds are emitted specifically to produce echoes. By comparing the outgoing pulse with the returning echoes the brain and auditory nervous system can produce detailed images of the bat's surroundings. This allows bats to detect, localize and even classify their prey in complete darkness. At 130 decibels in intensity, bat calls are some of the most intense airborne animal sounds.To clearly distinguish returning information, bats must be able to separate their calls from the echoes they receive. Microbats use two distinct approaches.
- Low Duty Cycle Echolocation: Bats can separate their calls and returning echos by time. Bats that use this approach time their short calls to finish before echoes return. This is important because these bats contract their middle ear muscles when emitting a call so that they can avoid deafening themselves. The time interval between call and echo allows them to relax these muscles so they can clearly hear the returning echo. The delay of the returning echos provides the bat with the ability to estimate range to their prey.
- High Duty Cycle Echolocation: Bats emit a continuous call and separate pulse and echo in frequency. The ears of these bats are sharply tuned to a specific frequency range. They emit calls outside of this range to avoid self-deafening. They then receive echoes back at the finely tuned frequency range by taking advantage of the Doppler shift of their motion in flight. The Doppler shift of the returning echos yields information relating to the motion and location of the bat's prey. These bats must deal with changes in the Doppler shift due to changes in their flight speed. They have adapted to change their pulse emission frequency in relation to their flight speed so echoes still return in the optimal hearing range.
The new Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera classification of bats that is supported by molecular evidence, suggests two possibilities for the evolution of echolocation. It may have been gained once in a common ancestor of all bats and was then subsequently lost in the Old World fruit bats, only to be regained in the Horse-Shoe bats; or echolocation was evolved independent in both the Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochirpotera lineages.
Two groups of moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
s exploit a bat sense to echolocate: tiger moths
Arctiidae
Arctiidae is a large and diverse family of moths with around 11,000 species found all over the world, including 6,000 neotropical species. This family includes the groups commonly known as tiger moths , which usually have bright colours, footmen , lichen moths and wasp moths...
produce ultrasonic
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is thus not separated from "normal" sound based on differences in physical properties, only the fact that humans cannot hear it. Although this limit varies from person to person, it is...
signals to warn the bats that they (the moths) are chemically protected or aposematic. This was once thought to be the biological equivalent of "radar jamming", but this theory has yet to be confirmed. The moths Noctuidae
Noctuidae
The Noctuidae or owlet moths are a family of robustly-built moths that includes more than 35,000 known species out of possibly 100,000 total, in more than 4,200 genera. They constitute the largest family in the Lepidoptera....
have a hearing organ called a tympanum
Tympanal organ
A tympanal organ is a hearing organ in insects, consisting of a membrane stretched across a frame backed by an air sac and associated sensory neurons...
, which responds to an incoming bat signal by causing the moth's flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive manoeuvres.
In addition to echolocating prey, bat ears are sensitive to the fluttering of moth wings, the sounds produced by tymbal
Tymbal
Tymbal is a term for a corrugated exoskeletal structure used to produce sounds in insects. In male cicadas, the tymbals are membranes in the abdomen, responsible for the characteristic sound produced by the insect...
ate insects and the movement of ground-dwelling prey such as centipedes, earwigs etc. The complex geometry of ridges on the inner surface of bat ears helps to sharply focus not only echolocation signals, but to passively listen for any other sound produced by the prey. These ridges can be regarded as the acoustic equivalent of a fresnel lens
Fresnel lens
A Fresnel lens is a type of lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses.The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design...
, and may be seen in a large variety of unrelated animals such as the aye-aye
Aye-aye
The aye-aye is a lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth and a special thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker...
, lesser galago, bat-eared fox
Bat-eared Fox
The bat-eared fox is a canid of the African savanna, named for its large ears. Fossil records show this canid to first appear during the middle Pleistocene, about 800,000 years ago....
, mouse lemur
Mouse lemur
The mouse lemurs are nocturnal lemurs of the genus Microcebus. Like all lemurs, mouse lemurs are native to Madagascar.Mouse lemurs have a combined head, body and tail length of less than , making them the smallest primates ; however, their weight fluctuates in response to daylight duration.Mouse...
and others.
Other senses
Although the eyeEye
Eyes are organs that detect light and convert it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons. The simplest photoreceptors in conscious vision connect light to movement...
s of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity
Visual acuity
Visual acuity is acuteness or clearness of vision, which is dependent on the sharpness of the retinal focus within the eye and the sensitivity of the interpretative faculty of the brain....
, none of them are blind. Vision is used to navigate microbats especially for long distances when beyond the range of echolocation. It has even been discovered that some species are able to detect ultraviolet
Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
light. They also have a high quality sense of smell and hearing. Bats hunt at night to avoid competition with birds, and travel large distances at most 800 km, in their search for food.
Wings
The wings of bats are much thinner than those of birds, allowing bats to maneuver more quickly and more accurately than birds. It is also delicate, ripping easily; however, the tissue of the bat's membrane is able to regrow, such that small tears can heal quickly. The surface of their wings is equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cell
Merkel cell
Merkel cells or Merkel-Ranvier cells are oval receptor cells found in the skin of vertebrates that have synaptic contacts with somatosensory afferents. They are associated with the sense of light touch discrimination of shapes and textures. They can turn malignant and form the skin tumor known as...
s, also found on human fingertips. These sensitive areas are different in bats, as each bump has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive and allowing the bat to detect and collect information about the air flowing over its wings, and to fly more efficiently by changing the shape of its wing in response. An additional kind of receptor cell is found in the wing membrane of species that use their wings to catch prey. This receptor cell is sensitive to the stretching of the membrane. The cells are concentrated in areas of the membrane where insects hit the wings when the bats capture them.
Other
The teeth of microbats resemble insectivoraInsectivora
The order Insectivora is a now-abandoned biological grouping within the class of mammals...
ns. They are very sharp to bite through the hardened armor of insects or the skin of fruit.
Mammals have one-way valves in vein
Vein
In the circulatory system, veins are blood vessels that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are the pulmonary and umbilical veins, both of which carry oxygenated blood to the heart...
s to prevent the blood from flowing backwards, but bats also have one-way valves in arteries
Artery
Arteries are blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart. This blood is normally oxygenated, exceptions made for the pulmonary and umbilical arteries....
.
The Tube-lipped Nectar Bat
Tube-lipped Nectar Bat
The Tube-lipped Nectar Bat is a bat from Ecuador which was first described in 2005. The species name fistulata is derived from the Latin word 'fistula', meaning 'tube'. It refers to the bat's lower lip which extends 3.3-4.8mm beyond the upper lip and is rolled into a funnel shape. The exact...
(Anoura fistulata), has the longest tongue
Tongue
The tongue is a muscular hydrostat on the floors of the mouths of most vertebrates which manipulates food for mastication. It is the primary organ of taste , as much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds. It is sensitive and kept moist by saliva, and is richly...
of any mammal relative to its body size. This is beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding. Their long narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s. When their tongue retracts, it coils up inside their rib cage.
Behaviour
Most microbats are nocturnal and are active at twilight. A large portion of bats migrateBird migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...
hundreds of kilometres to winter hibernation dens, some pass into torpor
Torpor
Torpor, sometimes called temporary hibernation is a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, usually characterized by a reduced body temperature and rate of metabolism. Animals that go through torpor include birds and some mammals such as mice and bats...
in cold weather, rousing and feeding when warm weather allows for insects to be active. Others retreat to caves for winter and hibernate
Hibernation
Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernating animals conserve food, especially during winter when food supplies are limited, tapping energy reserves, body fat, at a slow rate...
for six months. Bats rarely fly in rain as the rain interferes with their echo location, and they are unable to locate their food.
The social structure of bats varies, with some bats leading a solitary life and others living in caves colonized by more than a million bats. The fission-fusion social structure
Fission-fusion society
In primatology, a fission-fusion society is one in which the social group, e.g. bonobo collectives of 100-strong, sleep in one locality together, but forage in small groups going off in different directions during the day. This form of social organization occurs in several other species of...
is seen among several species of bats. The term "fusion" refers to a large numbers of bats that congregate together in one roosting area and "fission" refers to breaking up and the mixing of subgroups, with individual bats switching roosts with others and often ending up in different trees and with different roostmates.
Studies also show that bats make all kinds of sounds to communicate with others. Scientists in the field have listened to bats and have been able to identify some sounds with some behaviour bats will make after the sounds are made.
Insectivores make up 70% of bat species and locate their prey by means of echolocation. Of the remainder, most feed on fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
s. Only three species sustain themselves with blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
. Some species even prey on vertebrate
Vertebrate
Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...
s: these are the leaf-nosed bat
Leaf-nosed bat
The New World leaf-nosed bats are found throughout Central and South America, from Mexico to northern Argentina. They are ecologically the most varied and diverse family within the order Chiroptera...
s (Phyllostomidae) of Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, and the two bulldog bat
Bulldog bat
The Noctilionidae family of bats, commonly known as bulldog bats orfisherman bats, are represented by two species, the Greater Bulldog Bat and the Lesser Bulldog Bat. They are found near water, from Mexico to Argentina...
(Noctilionidae) species, which feed on fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
. At least two species of bat are known to feed on bats: the Spectral Bat
Spectral Bat
The Spectral Bat is a large, carnivorous leaf-nosed bat. Some alternate names for this species are the False Vampire Bat, Linnaeus's False Vampire Bat and the Spectral Vampire Bat...
, also known as the American False Vampire bat, and the Ghost Bat
Ghost Bat
The Ghost Bat , also known as the False Vampire Bat is a bat endemic to Australia, named for the extremely thin membrane of its wings that makes it appear ghostly at night. Ghost Bats have grey fur on their backs and pale grey or white fur on their undersides. They have long, narrow wings but no...
of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. One species, the Greater Noctule bat
Greater Noctule bat
The Greater Noctule bat is a rare mammal found in Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. It is the largest and least studied bat in Europe with a wingspan of up to 46 centimeters and is one of the few bat species to feed on passerine birds. Greater Noctule bat is the only bat species to hunt birds...
, catches and eats small bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s in the air.
Predators of bats include bat hawk
Bat Hawk
The Bat Hawk is a raptor found in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia to New Guinea. It is named for its diet, which consists mainly of bats. It requires open space in which to hunt, but will live anywhere from dense rainforest to semi-arid veld.-Description:The Bat Hawk is a slender, medium-sized...
s and bat falcon
Bat Falcon
The Bat Falcon is a falcon that is a resident breeder in tropical Mexico, Central and South America and Trinidad. It was long known as Falco albigularis; the name Falco fusco-coerulescens or Falco fuscocaerulescens, long used for the Aplomado Falcon, are now believed to refer to the present...
s.
Reproduction
Female bats use a variety of strategies to control the timing of pregnancy and the birth of young, to make delivery coincide with maximum food ability and other ecological factors. Females of some species have delayed fertilization, in which sperm are stored in the reproductive tract for several months after mating. In many such cases, mating occurs in the fall, and fertilization does not occur until the following spring. Other species exhibit delayed implantation, in which the egg is fertilized after mating, but remains free in the reproductive tract until external conditions become favorable for giving birth and caring for the offspring. In yet another strategy, fertilization and implantation both occur but development of the fetus is delayed until favorable conditions prevail. All of these adaptations result in the pup being born during a time of high local production of fruit or insects.
At birth the wings are too small to be used for flight. Young microbat
Microbat
The microbats constitute the suborder Microchiroptera within the order Chiroptera . They are most often referred to by their scientific name...
s become independent at the age of 6 to 8 weeks, while megabat
Megabat
Megabats constitute the suborder Megachiroptera, family Pteropodidae of the order Chiroptera . They are also called fruit bats, old world fruit bats, or flying foxes.-Description:...
s do not until they are four months old.
A single bat can live over 20 years, but the bat population growth is limited by the slow birth rate
Birth rate
Crude birth rate is the nativity or childbirths per 1,000 people per year . Another word used interchangeably with "birth rate" is "natality". When the crude birth rate is subtracted from the crude death rate, it reveals the rate of natural increase...
.
Hunting, feeding, and drinking
Newborn bats rely on the milk from their mother’s nipples for sustenance. When they are a few weeks old, bats are expected to fly and hunt on their own. It is up to them to find and catch their prey, along with satisfying their thirst.Hunting
Most bats are nocturnal creatures. Their daylight hours are spent grooming, sleeping, and resting; it is during the nighttime hours that they hunt. The means by which bats navigate while finding and catching their prey in the dark was unknown until the 1790s, when Lazzaro SpallanzaniLazzaro Spallanzani
Lazzaro Spallanzani was an Italian Catholic priest, biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and essentially discovered echolocation...
conducted a series of experiments on a group of blind bats. These bats were placed in a room submerged in total darkness, with silk threads strung across the room. Even then, the bats were able to navigate their way through the room. Spallanzani concluded that the bats were not using their eyes to fly through complete darkness, but something else.
Spallanzani decided that bats were able to catch and find their prey through the use of their ears. To prove this theory, Spallanzani plugged the ears of the bats in his experiment. To his pleasure, he found that the bats with plugged ears were not able to fly with the same amount of skill and precision that they were able to without their ears plugged.
Bats seem to use their ears to locate and catch their prey, but how they accomplish this was not discovered until the 1930s, by one Donald R. Griffin. Griffin, who was a biology student at Harvard College at the time, discovered that bats use echolocation to locate and catch their prey. When bats fly, they produce a constant stream of high-pitched sounds that only bats are able to hear. When the sound waves produced by these sounds hit an insect or other animal, the echoes bounce back to the bat, and guide them to the source.
Feeding and diet
The majority of food consumed by bats includes insects, fruits and flower nectar, vertebrates and blood. Almost three-fourths of the world’s bats are insect eaters. Insects consumed by bats include both aerial insects, and ground-dwelling insects. Each bat is typically able to consume one third of its body weight in insects each night, and several hundred insects in a few hours. This means that a group of one thousand bats could eat four tons of insects each year. If bats were to become extinct, the insect population is calculated to reach an alarmingly high number.Vitamin C
In a test of 34 bat species from six major families of bats, including major insect and fruit-eating bat families, it was found that bats in all tested families have lost the ability to make vitamin C, and this loss may derive from a common bat ancestor, as a single mutation.
Aerial insectivores
Watching a bat catch and eat an insect is difficult. The action is so fast that all one sees is a bat rapidly change directions, and continue on its way. Scientist Frederick A. Webster discovered how bats catch their prey. In 1960, Webster developed a high-speed camera that was able to take one thousand pictures per second. These photos revealed the fast and precise way in which bats catch insects. Occasionally, a bat will catch an insect in mid-air with its mouth, and eat it in the air. However, more often than not, a bat will use its tail membrane or wings to scoop up the insect and trap it in a sort of “bug net”. Then, the bat will take the insect back to its roost. There, the bat will proceed to eat said insect, often using its tail membrane as a kind of napkin, to prevent its meal from falling to the ground.
Forage gleaners (diet of non-flying insects)
These bats typically fly down and grasp their prey off the ground with their teeth, and take it to a nearby perch to eat it. Generally, these bats don’t use echolocation to locate their prey. Instead, they rely on the sounds produced by the insects. Some make unique sounds, and almost all make some noise while moving through the environment.
Fruits and flower nectar
Fruit-eating, or frugivory, is a specific habit found in two families of bats. Megachiropterans and microchiropterans both include species of bat that feed on fruits. These bats feed on the juices of sweet fruits, and fulfill the needs of some seeds to be dispersed. The fruits preferred by most fruit-eating bats are fleshy and sweet, but not particularly strong smelling or colorful. To get the juice of these fruits, bats pull the fruit off the trees with their teeth, and fly back to their roost with the fruit in their mouth. There, the bat will consume the fruit in a specific way. To do this, the bats crush open the fruit and eat the parts that satisfy their hunger. The remainder of the fruit; the seeds and pulp, are spat onto the ground. These seeds take root and begin to grow into new fruit trees. “Over one hundred and fifty types of plants depend on bats in order to reproduce”.
Some bats prefer the nectar of flowers to insects or other animals. These bats have evolved specifically for this purpose. For example, these bats possess long muzzles and long extrusible tongues covered in fine bristles that aid them in feeding on particular flowers and plants. When they sip the nectar from these flowers, pollen gets stuck to their fur, and is dusted off when the bat takes flight, thus pollinating the plants below them. The rainforest is said to be the most benefitted out off all the biomes that bats live in, because of the large variety of appealing plants. Because of their specific eating habits, nectar-feeding bats are more prone to extinction than any other type of bat. However, according to a study, bats benefit from eating fruits and nectar just as much from eating insects.
Vertebrates
Although most bats are not included in this group, there is a small group of carnivorous bats which feed on other vertebrates and are considered the top carnivores of the bat world. These bats typically eat a variety of animals, but normally consume frogs, lizards, birds, and sometimes other bats. For example, one vertebrate predator, Trachops cirrhosus, is particularly skilled at catching frogs. These bats locate large groups of frogs by distinguishing their mating calls from other sounds around them. They follow the sounds to the source and pluck them from the surface of the water with their sharp canine teeth. Another example is the Greater Noctule bat
Greater Noctule bat
The Greater Noctule bat is a rare mammal found in Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. It is the largest and least studied bat in Europe with a wingspan of up to 46 centimeters and is one of the few bat species to feed on passerine birds. Greater Noctule bat is the only bat species to hunt birds...
which is believed to catch birds on the wing.
There are also several species of bat that feed on fish. These types of bats are found on almost all continents. They use echolocation to detect tiny ripples in the water’s surface to locate fish. From there, the bats swoop down low, inches from the water, and use specially enlarged claws on their hind feet to grab the fish out of the water. The bats then take the fish to a feeding roost and consume the animal.
Blood
There are a few species of bat that consume blood exclusively as their diet. This type of diet is referred to as hematophagy, and three species of bat exhibit this behavior. These species include the Common Vampire Bat
Common Vampire Bat
The Common Vampire Bat is a small leaf-nosed bat native to the Americas. It is one of three extant species of vampire bat, the other two being the Hairy-legged Vampire Bat and the White-winged Vampire Bat. Along with them, it is the only parasitic mammal. It mainly feeds on the blood of livestock...
, the White-winged Vampire Bat
White-winged Vampire Bat
The White-winged Vampire Bat is a species of vampire bat. It is the only member of the genus Diaemus. It is found from Mexico to southern Argentina and is present on the islands of Trinidad and Isla Margarita...
, and the Hairy-legged Vampire Bat
Hairy-legged Vampire Bat
The Hairy-legged Vampire Bat is one of three species of vampire bat. Despite connotations of vampires, it mainly feeds on the blood of birds. This vampire bat lives mainly in tropical and subtropical forestlands of South America...
. The Common Vampire Bat typically consumes the blood of mammals, while the Hairy-legged and White-winged feed on the blood of birds.
Results of eating
Bats’ dung, or guanoGuano
Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...
, is so rich in nutrients that it is mined from caves, bagged, and used by farmers to fertilize their crops. During the U.S. Civil War, guano was used to make gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
.
There comes a time in the year that some bats will not eat to supply themselves with food for the night, but for the coming months. These bats are beginning to hibernate. To do this, the bat will eat as much food as its body can contain, being as fat as possible. The bat’s body then takes from the supply of fat for energy, but very slowly, because all body activities have slowed down. This supply of fat will last until the spring season arrives.
Drinking
Generally, bats drink water. In 1960, Frederic A. Webster discovered how bats are able to acquire this water. To do this, Webster developed a high-speed camera and flashgun that could take one thousand photos per second. Webster's camera captured the bat's method of skimming the surface of a body of water, and lowering its jaw to get just one drop of water. It then skims again to get a second drop of water, and then again to get a third, and so on, until it has had its fill of water. Its precision and control is very fine, and it almost never misses. Other bats such as the flying fox or fruit batFruit Bat
Fruit Bat can refer to:* Megabats, a species of bat which eats fruit* Les "Fruitbat" Carter, guitarist of Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine* Fruit Bats , an American band...
gently skim the water's surface, then land nearby to lick water from their chest fur.
Conservation efforts
Through conservancy efforts, such as the Organization for Bat ConservationOrganization for Bat Conservation
Organization for Bat Conservation is an nonprofit organization to further Bat Conservation. It is a conservationist organization, founded by Rob Mies and Kim Williams in the late 1990s. OBC’s vision is to inspire a peaceful coexistence between bats and humans and to promote global participation...
, bats are becoming better understood and people beginning to understand the crucial role bats play in insect control and pollination.
In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
all bats are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Acts, and even disturbing a bat or its roost can be punished with a heavy fine.
In Sarawak
Sarawak
Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
, Malaysia bats are protected species under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998 (see Malaysian Wildlife Law
Malaysian Wildlife Law
Malaysian Wildlife Law consists of the regulation, protection, conservation and management of wildlife in Malaysia. The Constitution of Malaysia empowers those at the federal and the states level to make laws regarding wildlife resources...
). The large Naked bat (see Mammals of Borneo
Mammals of Borneo
The mammal species of Borneo include 288 species of terrestrial and 91 species of marine mammals recorded within the territorial boundaries of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia...
) and Greater Nectar bat are consumed by the local communities.
Bats can be a tourist attraction. The Congress Avenue Bridge
Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge
The Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge crosses over Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. Before the construction of Longhorn Dam was completed in 1960, the bridge crossed the Colorado River from which Lady Bird Lake is impounded...
in Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
is the summer home to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
's largest urban bat colony, an estimated 1,500,000 Mexican free-tailed bat
Mexican Free-tailed Bat
The Mexican free-tailed bat , also known as the Brazilian free-tailed bat, is a medium-sized bat that is native to the Americas and is widely regarded as one of the most abundant mammals in North America...
s, which eat an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects each night. An estimated 100,000 tourists per year visit the bridge at twilight to watch the bats leave the roost.
Artificial roosts
Nest box
A nest box, also spelled nestbox is a man-made box provided for animals to nest in. Nest boxes are most frequently utilized for wild and domesticated birds, in which case they are also called birdhouses, but some mammalian species may also use them. Birdhouses are the most common types of nest...
to attract birds. Reasons for this vary, but mostly center around the fact that bats are the primary nocturnal insectivores in most if not all ecologies. Bat houses can be made from scratch, made from kits, or bought ready made. Plans for bat houses exist on many web sites, as well as guidelines for designing a bat house. Some conservation societies give away free bat houses to enthusiasts worldwide.
A bat house constructed in 1991 at the University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
campus next to Lake Alice in Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Alachua County, Florida, United States as well as the principal city of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area . The preliminary 2010 Census population count for Gainesville is 124,354. Gainesville is home to the sixth...
has a population of over 100,000 free-tailed bats.
In Britain, British hardened field defences of World War II
British hardened field defences of World War II
British hardened field defences of World War II were small fortified structures constructed as a part of British anti-invasion preparations. They were popularly known as pillboxes by reference to their shape.-Design and development:...
have been converted to make roosts for bats. Pillboxes that are well dug-in and thick walled are naturally damp and provide a stable thermal environment that is required by bats that would otherwise hibernate in caves. With a few minor modifications, suitable pillboxes can be converted to artificial caves for bats.
Again in the UK, purpose-built bat houses are occasionally built when existing roosts are destroyed by developments such as new roads; one such has been built associated with bat bridge
Bat bridge
A bat bridge is a structure of varying construction crossing a new or altered road to aid the navigation of bats following the destruction of a hedgerow, and to cause the bats to cross the roadway at a sufficient height to avoid traffic...
s on the new (2008) A38 Dobwalls
Dobwalls
Dobwalls is a village in south-east Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated three miles west of Liskeard.The name is spelt Dubwalls on Bartholomew's map and Black's Guide of 1879....
bypass.
Threats
While conservation efforts are in place to protect bats, many threats still remain.White nose syndrome
White nose syndrome is a condition associated with the deaths of more than a million bats in the Northeastern United StatesNortheastern United States
The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...
. The disease is named after a white fungus
Fungus
A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
found growing on the muzzles, ears, and wings of some afflicted bats, but it is not known if the fungus is the primary cause of the disease or is merely an opportunistic infection
Opportunistic infection
An opportunistic infection is an infection caused by pathogens, particularly opportunistic pathogens—those that take advantage of certain situations—such as bacterial, viral, fungal or protozoan infections that usually do not cause disease in a healthy host, one with a healthy immune system...
. Mortality rates of 90–100% have been observed in some caves. At least six species of hibernating bats are affected, including the endangered Indiana bat
Indiana bat
The Indiana bat is a medium-sized mouse-eared bat native to North America. It lives primarily in eastern and midwestern states and in parts of the south of the United States. The Indiana bat is gray, black, or chestnut in colour and is 1.2–2 inches and weighs about 1/4 an ounce...
. Because the affected species have a long lifespan and a low birth rate
Fecundity
Fecundity, derived from the word fecund, generally refers to the ability to reproduce. In demography, fecundity is the potential reproductive capacity of an individual or population. In biology, the definition is more equivalent to fertility, or the actual reproductive rate of an organism or...
of only about one offspring per year, it is not expected that populations will recover quickly.
Barotrauma and wind turbines
Although sounds or vibrations emitted from wind turbines have no adverse effect on human health, evidence suggests that BarotraumaBarotrauma
Barotrauma is physical damage to body tissues caused by a difference in pressure between an air space inside or beside the body and the surrounding fluid...
is causing bat fatalities around wind farms. The lungs of bats are typical mammalian lungs, and unlike the lungs of birds it has been hypothesized they are more sensitive to sudden air pressure changes in their immediate vicinity such as wind turbine
Wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...
s, and are more liable to rupture. Bats suffer a higher death rate than birds in the neighborhood of wind turbine
Wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...
s. Since there are no signs of external trauma, the cause has been hypothesized to be a greater sensitivity to sudden pressure fluctuations in the mammalian lung than in that of birds. In addition, it has been suggested that bats are attracted to these structures, perhaps seeking roosts, and thereby increasing the death rate.
Pathogens and role in the transmission of zoonoses
Among ectoparasites, bats occasionally carry fleaFlea
Flea is the common name for insects of the order Siphonaptera which are wingless insects with mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood...
s, but are one of the few mammalian orders that cannot host lice (most of the others are water animals).
Bats are natural reservoir
Natural reservoir
Natural reservoir or nidus, refers to the long-term host of the pathogen of an infectious disease. It is often the case that hosts do not get the disease carried by the pathogen or it is carried as a subclinical infection and so asymptomatic and non-lethal...
for a large number of zoonotic
Zoonosis
A zoonosis or zoonoseis any infectious disease that can be transmitted from non-human animals to humans or from humans to non-human animals . In a study of 1415 pathogens known to affect humans, 61% were zoonotic...
pathogen
Pathogen
A pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...
s including rabies, severe acute respiratory syndrome
Severe acute respiratory syndrome
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is a respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus . Between November 2002 and July 2003 an outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong nearly became a pandemic, with 8,422 cases and 916 deaths worldwide according to the WHO...
(SARS), Henipavirus
Henipavirus
Henipavirus is a genus of the family Paramyxoviridae, order Mononegavirales containing two established species, Hendra virus and Nipah virus. The henipaviruses are naturally harboured by Pteropid fruit bats , and some microbat species...
(i.e. Nipah virus and Hendra virus) and possibly ebola virus
Ebola virus
Ebola virus causes severe disease in humans and in nonhuman primates in the form of viral hemorrhagic fever. EBOV is a Select Agent, World Health Organization Risk Group 4 Pathogen , National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Category A Priority Pathogen,...
. Their high mobility, broad distribution, and social behaviour (communal roosting, fission-fusion social structure) make bats favourable hosts and vectors of disease. Many species also appear to have a high tolerance for harbouring pathogens and often do not develop disease while infected. However, contrary to folklore, this is not true of rabies, which is as fatal to bats as it is to all other species. However, a bat may be ill with rabies for a longer time than other mammals.
In regions where rabies is endemic, only 0.5% of bats carry the disease. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, bats typically constitute around a quarter of reported cases of rabies in wild animals. However,
their bites account for the vast majority of cases of rabies
Rabies
Rabies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals. It is zoonotic , most commonly by a bite from an infected animal. For a human, rabies is almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis is not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms...
in humans. Of the 36 cases of domestically-acquired rabies recorded in the country in 1995-2010, two were caused by dog bites and four patients were infected by receiving transplants from an organ donor who had previously died of rabies. All other cases were caused by bat bites. Rabies is considered fully preventable if the patient is administered a vaccine prior to the onset of symptoms. However, unlike raccoon
Raccoon
Procyon is a genus of nocturnal mammals, comprising three species commonly known as raccoons, in the family Procyonidae. The most familiar species, the common raccoon , is often known simply as "the" raccoon, as the two other raccoon species in the genus are native only to the tropics and are...
or skunk
Skunk
Skunks are mammals best known for their ability to secrete a liquid with a strong, foul odor. General appearance varies from species to species, from black-and-white to brown or cream colored. Skunks belong to the family Mephitidae and to the order Carnivora...
bites, bat bites may go ignored or unnoticed and hence untreated. Rabid bats are broadly distributed throughout the United States: in 2008-2010, cases were reported in every state, except Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
Those bats that are rabid may be clumsy, disoriented, and unable to fly, which makes it more likely that they will come into contact with humans. Although one should not have an unreasonable fear of bats
Fear of bats
Fear of bats, sometimes called chiroptophobia, may refer both to a specific phobia associated with bats and to common negative stereotypes and fear of bats stemming from prejudices and misinformation.-Roots and misconceptions:...
, one should avoid handling them or having them in one's living space, as with any wild animal. If a bat is found in living quarters near a child, mentally handicapped person, intoxicated person, sleeping person, or pet, the person or pet should receive immediate medical attention for rabies. Bats have very small teeth and can bite a sleeping person without being felt. There is evidence that it is possible for the bat rabies virus to infect victims purely through airborne transmission, without direct physical contact of the victim with the bat itself.
If a bat is found in a house and the possibility of exposure cannot be ruled out, the bat should be sequestered and an animal control officer called immediately, so that the bat can be analysed. This also applies if the bat is found dead. If it is certain that nobody has been exposed to the bat, it should be removed from the house. The best way to do this is to close all the doors and windows to the room except one that opens to the outside. The bat should soon leave.
Due to the risk of rabies and also due to health problems related to their faecal droppings (guano
Guano
Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...
), bats should be excluded from inhabited parts of houses. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
provides full detailed information on all aspects of bat management, including how to capture a bat, what to do in case of exposure, and how to bat-proof a house humanely. In certain countries, such as the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, it is illegal to handle bats without a license.
Where rabies is not endemic, as throughout most of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, small bats can be considered harmless. Larger bats can give a nasty bite.
Mythology
Bats have long been associated with witchcraft, black magic and darkness. The witches incorporate bat in their brew in Shakespeare's Macbeth. The fact that bats are mammals, yet can fly gives them status as liminal beingLiminal being
Liminality has been defined as 'a semi-autonomous zone of social reality'. Liminal beings are associated with that intermediate status: 'Turner argues that the liminal personae are "necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications...
s in many cultural traditions.
The bat is sacred in Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
and is often considered the physical manifestation of a separable soul. Bats are closely associated with vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
s, who are said to be able to shapeshift
Shapeshifting
Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...
into bats, fog
Fog
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
, or wolves. Bats are also a symbol of ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
s, death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
, and disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
. Among some Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, such as the Creek, Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
and Apache, the bat is a trickster
Trickster
In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...
spirit.
Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
lore claims the bat is a symbol of longevity and happiness, and is similarly lucky in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and geographical Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
and among the Kwakiutl
Kwakiutl
The term Kwakiutl, historically applied to the entire Kwakwaka'wakw ethno-linguistic group of originally 28 tribes, comes from one of the Kwakwaka'wakw tribes, the Kwagu'ł or Kwagyeulth, at Fort Rupert, with whom Franz Boas did most of his anthropological work and whose Indian Act Band government...
and Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s.
Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
cultures associated animals with gods and often displayed them in art. The Moche
Moche
'The Moche civilization flourished in northern Peru from about 100 AD to 800 AD, during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state...
people depicted bats in their ceramics.
In Western Culture
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
, the bat is often a symbol of the night and its foreboding nature. The bat is a primary animal associated with fictional characters of the night, both villain
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
s like Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
and hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
es like Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
. The association of the fear of the night with the animal was treated as a literary challenge by Kenneth Oppel
Kenneth Oppel
Kenneth Oppel is a Canadian author. Born in Port Alberni, British Columbia, he spent his childhood in Victoria, British Columbia and Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has also lived in Newfoundland and Labrador, England and Ireland....
, who created a best selling series of novels, beginning with Silverwing
Silverwing (novel)
Silverwing is a best-selling children's novel, written by Kenneth Oppel, first published in 1997 by HarperCollins. It tells the story of a colony of silverwing bats. The tone and artistic ambition of this series of bestsellers has been compared to the classic animal novel Watership Down...
, which feature bats as the central heroic figures much as anthropomorphized rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
s were the central figures to the classic novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Watership Down
Watership Down
Watership Down is a classic heroic fantasy novel, written by English author Richard Adams, about a small group of rabbits. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language , proverbs, poetry, and mythology...
.
An old wives' tale
Old wives' tale
An old wives' tale is a type of urban legend, similar to a proverb, which is generally passed down by old wives to a younger generation. Such "tales" usually consist of superstition, folklore or unverified claims with exaggerated and/or untrue details. Today old wives' tales are still common among...
has it that bats will entangle themselves in people's hair. One likely source of this belief is that insect-eating bats seeking prey may dive erratically toward people, who attract mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
es and gnat
Gnat
A gnat is any of many species of tiny flying insects in the Dipterid suborder Nematocera, especially those in the families Mycetophilidae, Anisopodidae and Sciaridae.In British English the term applies particularly to Nematocerans of the family Culicidae...
s, leading the squeamish to believe that the bats are trying to get in their hair.
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
n mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
during the Classic-Contemporary period, bats symbolized the land of the dead, which was considered to be the underworld. They also symbolized destruction and decay. Bats may have symbolized in this way because they fly only at night and dwell in caves during the daytime and are associated with human skulls and bones by classic Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
ceramists. Central Mexicans sometimes depicted bats having snouts that looked like sacrificial knives and carrying human head in the Postclassic era. Bat images were engraved onto funerary urns and were emphasized with large claws and round ears by Zapotecs
Zapotec civilization
The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years...
. They were commonly associated with death. The depiction of bats on funeral urns and goods took on some the characteristics of the jaguar
Jaguar
The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Southern United States and Mexico...
which was and still is another entity of the night and the underworld. There have also been instances where bats are portrayed next to other animals portrayed negatively in Mesoamerica, including scorpion
Scorpion
Scorpions are predatory arthropod animals of the order Scorpiones within the class Arachnida. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by the pair of grasping claws and the narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back, ending with a venomous stinger...
s and other nocturnal animals such as owl
Owl
Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...
s.
A gigantic, life-size ceramic bat-man has been discovered and dug up from the Templo Mayor. The Templo Mayor is located in the center of the Mexica
Mexica
The Mexica were a pre-Columbian people of central Mexico.Mexica may also refer to:*Mexica , a board game designed by Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling*Mexica , a 2005 novel by Norman Spinrad...
capital of Tenochtitlan. Known as a god of death, this statue has the clawed feet and hands of a bat, but the body of a man. The statue's human-like eyes bulged out from the bat-like head, making the Zapotec
Zapotec civilization
The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years...
images very realistic and living. It was said that in the 1930s the Kaqchikel Maya proclaimed that the bat was the Devil’s provider. Kaqchikel would leave the Devil’s underworld home and collect blood from the animals to be used for scrumptious meals to feed the Devil. “In the myths, the beast of prey and the animal that is preyed upon play two significant roles. They represent two aspects of life—the aggressive, killing, conquering, creating aspect of life, and the one that is the matter or, you might say, the subject matter”. In the Devil’s underworld, dead sinners would work off their sins in order to get to heaven, indicating that the bat was too a sinner and worked under the authority of the Devil.
Oaxaca
OaxacaOaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...
ns believe that the jealousy of the bat in wanting birds' feathers that gently fit their bodies led him to become nocturnal. The bat feeling isolated and undesirable spoke to God after that he complained he was extremely cold. God, fair and just turned to birds in the animal kingdom and asked if they would show compassion and donate a feather to the bat so the feathers would keep him warm. The birds all agreed, and began to pluck one feather from their bodies to give to the bat. With all of the feathers, the bat became much magnificent looking than all birds, even able to spread color to the night sky. During daylight, the bat created rainbows that reflected vibrant colors from the sun. The bat soon became overly arrogant and conceited, due having this new and improved look. The birds grew tired of the bat’s self conceitedness and glorification, and so decided to fly up to heaven and speak to God to do something. The birds informed to God of the bat's behaviour, God was surprised and so decided to take a look himself. When on Earth, God called on the bat to show him what he was doing. The bat began to fly across the light blue sky, where one by one each feather began to fall out, uncovering the bat’s natural ugly looking body. The bat became ashamed and distressed of his appearance after all feathers came off, missing the beautiful, plentiful feathers that he had, that he decided to hide in caves during the day. He would only come out during the night, searching high and low for the feathers to avoid embarrassment that he will not be seen during his search.
East Nigeria
According to a particular East Nigerian tale, the bat developed its nocturnal habits after causing the death of his partner the bush-ratRat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
. The bat and the bush-rat would share activities such as rummaging through the grass
Grass
Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...
and tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s, hunting, talking and bonding during the day. When at night, the bat and the bush-rat would alternate in cooking duties cooking what was caught, and eat together. It appeared to a dedicated partnership, however the bat hated the bush-rat immensely.
The bush rat always found the bat’s soup
Soup
Soup is a generally warm food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.Traditionally,...
more appetising so when eating dinner one night asked the bat why the soup tasted better than his own and also asked how it was made. The bat agreed to show him how to make it the next day but instead was forming a malicious plan.
Next day as bat prepared his soup, the bush-rat came, greeting him and asked if he could be shown what was agreed yesterday. Earlier, the bat has found a pot looking exactly like the one he used usually, but it held warm water and so decided to use this instead. The bat explained to the bush-rat that to make his soup, he had to boil himself prior to serving the soup where sweetness and flavor of the soup came from the flesh
Flesh
In vertebrate animals, flesh is the colloquial for biological tissue which consists of skeletal muscles and fat as opposed to bones, viscera and integuments. Flesh may be used as food, in which case it is called meat....
. The bat jumped in the pot seemingly excited, with the bush-rat mesmerised. After a few minutes the bat climbed out and while the bush-rat was distracted, switched pots. The bat then served his soup out of the soup pot, both tasted it. Over anxious and eager, the bush-rat, jumped into the pot of warm water. He stayed much longer in the pot dying in the process.
When the bush-rat’s wife
Wife
A wife is a female partner in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the wife regarding her spouse and others, and her status in the community and in law, varies between cultures and has varied over time.-Origin and etymology:...
returned that night to find her husband
Husband
A husband is a male participant in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the husband regarding his spouse and others, and his status in the community and in law, vary between cultures and has varied over time...
dead, she wept and ran to the chief
Tribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
of the land's house telling him about what happened and what she was sure what the bat had done. In hearing this, the chief became angry, ordering for the immediate arrest of the bat. It just so happened that the bat was flying over the house and overheard what was just said. He quickly went into hiding high up in a tree. When the chief’s men went looking for the bat, he could not be found. The search to arrest the bat carried on over several days, but still could not be found. The bat needed to eat, so flew out of hiding every night to hunt
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
for food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
to escape of being arrested. This, according to Eastern Nigeria mythology, is why bats only fly at night.
Heraldry
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
. The coats of arms of certain cities in eastern Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, like Valencia, Palma de Mallorca
Palma de Mallorca
Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...
and Fraga
Fraga
Fraga is the major town of the comarca of Bajo Cinca in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. It is located by the river Cinca.King Alfonso I of Aragon died at its walls in 1134 while trying to conquer it...
have the bat over the shield. Formerly the Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
city coat of arms also had a bat crowning it, but the bat has been removed in the present-day versions.
The heraldic use of the bat in Valencia, Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
and the Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
has its origins in a winged dragon (vibra or vibria), which featured in King James I of Aragon
James I of Aragon
James I the Conqueror was the King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276...
's helmet or cimera reial. This is the most widely accepted theory, although there is also a legend that says that due to the intervention of a bat, King James was able to win a crucial battle against the Saracen
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
s that allowed him to win Valencia for his kingdom.
The use of the bat as a heraldic symbol is prevalent in the territories of the former Crown of Aragon
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...
and it is little used elsewhere. However, it can be found in a few places, as in the coats of arms of the city of Albacete
Albacete
Albacete is a city and municipality in southeastern Spain, 258 km southeast of Madrid, the capital of the province of Albacete in the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. The municipality had a population of c. 169,700 in 2009....
, in Spain, as well as the town of Montchauvet (Yvelines)
Montchauvet, Yvelines
Montchauvet is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.A British bomber was shot down in the area of Montchauvet on June 8th, 1944. The six men of his crew rest in the local graveyard....
, in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
Certain Spanish football clubs including Valencia CF
Valencia CF
Valencia Club de Fútbol is a Spanish football club based in Valencia, Spain. They play in La Liga and are one of the most successful and biggest clubs in Spanish Football and European Football. Valencia have won six La Liga titles, seven Copa del Rey trophies, two Fairs Cups which was the...
and Levante UD
Levante UD
Levante Unión Deportiva, S.A.D. is a Spanish football club based in Valencia, in the namesake community.Founded in 1909, it plays in La Liga, holding home games at Estadi Ciutat de València.-Early years:...
use bats in their badges.
The Burgee
Burgee
A burgee is a distinguishing flag, regardless of its shape, of a recreational boating organization.-Etiquette:Yacht clubs and their members may fly their club's burgee while underway and at anchor, day or night, but not while racing. Sailing vessels may fly the burgee from the main masthead or from...
of the Royal Valencia Yacht Club (Reial Club Nàutic de València) displays a bat on a golden field in its center.
State symbols
Three U.S. states have an official state bat. Texas and Oklahoma are represented by the Mexican free-tailed batMexican Free-tailed Bat
The Mexican free-tailed bat , also known as the Brazilian free-tailed bat, is a medium-sized bat that is native to the Americas and is widely regarded as one of the most abundant mammals in North America...
. Virginia is represented by the Virginia big-eared bat.
See also
- Audiograms in mammals
- Bat detectorBat detectorA bat detector is a device used to detect the presence of bats by converting their echolocation ultrasound signals to audible frequencies as they are emitted by the bats...
- Grandview MineGrandview MineThe Grandview Mine, also known as the Last Chance Mine, was operated by Pete Berry from 1892 until 1901 in what later became Grand Canyon National Park. The Grandview Mine Historic District includes what remains of the mine shafts and machinery as well as the ruins of a stone house and sleeping...
, a bat-protection gating project in Grand Canyon National ParkGrand Canyon National ParkGrand Canyon National Park is the United States' 15th oldest national park and is located in Arizona. Within the park lies the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, considered to be one of the Wonders of the World. The park covers of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties.Most... - Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue BridgeAnn W. Richards Congress Avenue BridgeThe Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge crosses over Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. Before the construction of Longhorn Dam was completed in 1960, the bridge crossed the Colorado River from which Lady Bird Lake is impounded...
, location of the world's largest urban bat colony in Austin, TexasAustin, TexasAustin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
External links
- BBC Wales Nature: Bat article
- UK Bat Conservation Trust
- University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
- Bats and Tarsier
- Tree of Life
- Microbat Vision
- Bats of Australia
- Bat Conservation International (US)
- Organization for Bat Conservation (US)
- Evolution of cranial morphology in bats in relation to diet (by Divulgare)